En mayo, National Geographic estrena su documental sobre la Isla del Coco a través de la señal de NatGeo Wild. Sin embargo, esta no es la primera expedición a la isla. Gracias al Cimar de la UCR, los costarricenses hemos recuperado nuestra soberanía científica en este sitio declarado Patrimonio Natural de la Humanidad.

Cuando Enric Sala se embarcó en Ocean Now, programa de expediciones marinas de la National Geographic Society para estudiar los últimos lugares en el orbe con un buen estado de conservación, sabía que uno de esos tenía que ser la Isla del Coco. También estaba al tanto que nadie conoce tan bien esta área protegida como el equipo de científicos del Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (Cimar) de la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). De esta manera, era lógico que al lado del ecólogo y coordinador de la expedición de NatGeo viajara una de las autoridades en materia de corales tropicales en Latinoamérica y cuya labor científica se desarrolla en Costa Rica.

Mientras Sala se encargó de los estudios de biomasa de peces y redes tróficas, Jorge Cortés, del Cimar lideró la investigación en aguas profundas.

“Lo que encontramos superó nuestras expectativas. Personalmente, no puedo creer que la Isla del Coco es uno de esos únicos lugares donde, en un solo buceo, uno puede ver miles de jureles, delfines, martillos y tortugas. ¡Así era el océano hace 200 años! Eso demuestra que la protec ción ha funcionado”, comenta Sala.
El mundo entero podrá verlo con sus ojos cuando se estrene La isla de los tiburones, documental que se trasmitió en abril en Estados Unidos y en mayo se proyectará en el resto del planeta a través de la señal de NatGeoWild.

Ahora bien, ese buen estado de salud no es obra de la casualidad. Ya son 30 años desde que el país se comprometió con su preservación al declararla parque nacional en 1978. Coincidentemente es la misma cantidad de años que tiene el Cimar de brindar información para sustentar técnicamente decisiones de conservación.

La Ysle des Coques, nombre con que fue consignada por primera vez en un mapa, fue descubierta por el navegante Joan Cabeças en 1526 y pasó a ser territorio costarricense en 1869. Queda a día y medio de viaje en barco, exactamente a 500 kilómetros de continente. Es más, se podría decir que es el punto intermedio entre Puntarenas y las islas Galápagos.

Los primeros en mostrar un interés científico por la isla fueron los estadounidenses, quienes la exploraron en 1888 y 1891. En 1898 se dio la primera expedición liderada por un costarricense cuando Henri Pittier la visitó abordo de la embarcación Poás. Volvió una vez más en 1902. Después de eso, la investigación quedó en manos de los norteamericanos, ingleses y alemanes.

Los ticos hicieron un nuevo intento en 1994. Sin embargo, en esta última década es donde se han concentrado los mayores esfuerzos por explorar este parque nacional y el nombre de Jorge Cortés sale a colación en cada uno de ellos.

“En una entrevista que me hicieron, le comentaba al periodista que ahora las expediciones están siendo lideradas por costarricenses. Y él me dijo una frase que me gustó mucho: se podría decir que estamos recuperando la soberanía científica de la Isla del Coco”, cuenta Cortés a manera de anécdota.

Es que antes de embarcarse con National Geographic, la experiencia ya suma horas de buceo en las bitácoras del equipo de investigadores del Cimar. En el 2006 y 2007, Conservación Internacional (CI) y MarViva patrocinaron dos expediciones abordo del Proteus. Los resultados ya fueron publicado en el volumen 56 de la Revista de Biologia Tropical.

Seguidamente, el Fondo Francés para el Medioambiente Mundial (FFEM) financió un proyecto de investigación por 2 años. Actualmente se están procesando los datos y ya se prepara una publicación con los resultados.

Gracias a estos antecedentes, se hizo una propuesta al Consejo Nacional de Rectores (Conare) que aceptó financiar unos 3 años más de estudios. Es más, el centro ya cuenta con un programa exclusivo para esta área marina protegida que permitirá enmarcar todos los proyectos relacionados.“Ahora existe una comunidad científica costarricense y es inaceptable que vengan barcos a tomar muestras y se vayan como hacían antes. ¿Quieren venir aquí?

Entonces debemos darles nuestros términos y los científicos extranjeros eso lo agradecen. Así, la comunidad científica nacional se da a respetar y se pueden hacer proyectos conjuntos. Uno como costarricense es una contraparte científica, no una agencia de viajes”, enfatiza Cortés. Precisamente, unos que agradecieron ese bagaje de ciencia fueron Enric Sala y National Geographic.

El eslogan del popular canal de televisión sirve para describir ese sentimiento que se apoderó de los investigadores cuando se sumergieron en el área marina en setiembre del 2009.

“Una de las cosas más bonitas de mi trabajo es que viajo por todo el mundo y eso me ha permitido conocer lugares extraordinarios. Pero tengo que decirles que la Isla del Coco es verdaderamente uno de los sitios más impresionantes y hermosos en el planeta”, confiesa Terry García quien es vicepresidente ejecutivo de National Geographic Society.

Como se mencionó anteriormente, los científicos conformaron dos grupos que estudiaron tanto el área protegida como un sitio aledaño que los pescadores conocen como Los Picos o Las Gemelas, el cual se encuentra a 40 km suroeste de la isla.

El grupo liderado por Sala se encargó de calcular la diversidad y biomasa de peces, esto último es el total de organismos que viven en una zona determinada. En este sentido, se dice que el área protegida cuenta con un buen estado de salud porque su biomasa es de siete toneladas por hectárea. Esta es una de las más altas del mundo y la mayor registrada en América.

Otra señal de buena salud está dada por las redes tróficas (cadenas alimenticias) y en estas, los depredadores son piedra angular de un ecosistema. No es solo que la biomasa de depredadores representa el 40% del total sino que la cantidad y tamaño evidencian un ecosistema en equilibrio.

“Quedan pocos lugares en el planeta con tal abundancia de vida marina. Las características de la isla hacen que sea uno de los pocos puntos de referencia que tenemos los científicos para estudiar el impacto humano en el planeta. Es un tesoro del cual los costarricenses deberían sentirse muy orgullosos”, asegura Sala.

Lastimosamente, los resultados en Los Picos o las Gemelas no fueron tan positivos. Ahí se encontraron cantidades de líneas de pesca en el fondo marino y una población escasa de depredadores.

El segundo grupo, a cargo de Cortés, se dedicó al estudio de las zonas profundas. Para ello, se valieron del submarino Deep Sea del Under Sea Hunter, el cual les permitió trazar trayectos que no solo advertían la presencia de una especie sino que también la cantidad de individuos en un sitio determinado.

Asimismo, se hicieron colectas. Las más de 100 muestras ya forman parte de la colección de peces e invertebrados del Museo de Zoología de la UCR. Además, se estudiaron los organismos que viven en la columna de agua.
“Es seguro que de ahí van a salir nuevos reportes para Costa Rica y algunos nuevos para la ciencia”, confía Cortés. Para eso, ya se convocó a un grupo de expertos nacionales y extranjeros para que realicen la respectiva identificación y descripción de las especies.

La buena noticia es que este proyecto en aguas profundas no se acaba con National Geographic. El Cimar tiene un acuerdo con Under Sea Hunter para continuar con estas investigaciones. Incluso, se diseñó un protocolo y se capacitó a los operadores del submarino para tomar datos y hacer filmaciones en todas las inmersiones que hagan.

Igualmente, se busca la manera de poner marcas en el fondo marino con el fin de observar los cambios en el tiempo. Ocasionalmente, uno de los tres investigadores autorizados por el Cimar viajará a la isla para tomar muestras.

Cierto, NatGeo Wild le mostrará este paraíso que resguarda uno de los mayores tesoros de la naturaleza. Pero aún resta mucho por conocer. Es inevitable pensarlo: enbuenahora existe el Cimar.

Avi Klapfer, underwater photographer, diving with his biomarine closed circuit rebreather, taking a picture of Undersea Hunter´s (Miami, Florida) newly acquired three-person Triumph submersible. The vehicle, built by SEAmagine Hydrospace Corp. (Claremont, California), prepares for its descent to 1,500 feet off the coast of Coco´s Island in Costa Rica. (Photo by Ofer Ketter.)

“Get in the water quick Jeff” urged Yosy, “you might see the dolphins.” I rolled back instantly, grasping my mask face with my left hand and the mask strap with my right. I kept tightly bunched with my knees against my chest until I sank to a safe depth, then I unwound, kicking purposefully downwards, spiraling, searching for the dolphins. They were there, coursing to the bottom and back to the surface rapidly, four or five of them, screeching maniacally, swimming in their jerking style at a cadence far beyond play.

Only seconds before, I had anticipated a peaceful encounter with gamesome, bottle nosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), what appeared before me was mayhem. The pod had pinned a school of amberstriped shad (Decapterus muroadsi) a small (20 cm. / 8 inch) baitfish, to the bottom and were annihilating them down to the last soul.

I had the first three minutes to myself, and then the other divers hit the salt and began to descend into the chaos. Mixed into the marauding dolphins were 45 kilogram (100 lb.) yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) doing their best to beat the mammals to the morsels. We wedged ourselves into the cracks of volcanic boulders for protection, as the gruesome scene played itself into a second act. A score of 3 meter (10 ft.) Galapagos sharks (Carcharhinus galapagensis) arrived on stage, accompanied by stout, 2.5 meter (8 ft.) blacktips (Carcharhinus limbatus).

Maimed and crippled shad littered the bottom and some survivors had sought refuge at the base of rocks. The sharks gathered into a tight, whirling vortex. Twisting like a tornadic wind, they spun to the bottom picking off the helpless. Joining the ravening pack of dolphins, tuna and sharks were mullet snappers (Lutjanus aratus) and rainbow runners (Elagatis bipinnulata). Each time a predator grabbed a bait, the other members of the cadre of killers would swarm about its head, contending fiercely to snatch the food from the victor’s mouth before it could be swallowed. Carnage and rapacity reigned, and dolphins were no better than sharks or tunas. It was a brawl where the quickest thief prevailed and the most ruthless instincts won.

Once again, that notorious little corner of the shark diver’s world known as “Outside Manualita” had become a killing floor. The unrelenting slaughter lasted a full forty minutes as the protein passed into predator’s guts. In the end, all that remained of the shad school were a few silvery scales temporarily suspended in the current.

When the action ceased we launched ourselves in unison from the protecting crevices and swam into the blue water beyond and towards the sunlight above. We paused for a safety stop, drifting in the open sea 6 meters (20 ft.) below the surface. An inquisitive green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) paddled in to investigate. Then, as if obeying some silent command, a flight of 2 meter (6 ½ ft.) silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) appeared at the edge of visibility. Their sleek bodies and low dorsal fins distinguished them from their brethren. A hundred open ocean sharks eased in, enveloping us, surrounding us on all sides except over head. The silkies circled slowly, their eyes locking on to ours. We drifted together in the blue, human and shark. Each species was apprising the other. There was no panic or haste as we climbed back into the skiff. The silkies, although numerous and aggregated, were not considering us as food, they were simply curious.

Once aboard, the small boat buzzed with chatter in three languages. The tart taste of the unexpected is always the preferred cocktail of shark divers. The quest for excitement is the abiding reason we spend our time and treasure in the pursuit of sharks. We had traveled from Israel and England, Colorado, Costa Rica and Colombia, France and Florida in pursuit of that one overwhelming episode --- that one precious event that will stick in our minds forever. We now had that occurrence secured. No matter what else happened on this trip we had the game won. Now we could relax and run up the score as high as we pleased.

The magnitude of what had just happened began to sink in when the owner and the crew of the “Sea Hunter,” veterans of years of Cocos diving, said this was a exceptional experience by any measure: the scene, the ferocity, the duration, the size of the animals, the climaxing of the swirling sharks and the afterglow with silkies had all conspired to make this a highlight of these professional adventurers lives.

There were many other memorable moments in the trip. We dove in the night with swarms of whitetip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus) so dense that the bottom was hidden from view. When the whitetips began to feed, they literally moved rocks as they burrowed into the bottom competing for prey. There were eagle rays (Aetobatus narinari), batfish and barracudas, and vast shoals of jacks. We had pilot whales (Globicephala sp.) on the surface and table sized marble rays (Taeniura meyeni) when we dove.

From the deck of our vessel we saw sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) at sunset, sea turtles at noon and jumping sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) at daybreak. There were double rainbows, and sea arches, and waterfalls too numerous to count. Jacques Cousteau claimed that Isla del Coco is the most beautiful island in the world. Robert Louis Stevenson made it immortal in literature when he named it Treasure Island. I first visited Coco in January 1989. I doubt that there have been many days since then that the Wet Paradise has not dripped its warm, addicting allure into my thoughts. For shark divers, Coco is the place of destiny and fulfillment, a bastion for elasmobranchs, a stronghold for the class in a world where their number is under unrelenting attack for ego, food and profit.

We dove locations where handsome silvertip sharks (Carcharhinus albimarginatus) came peacefully to be cleaned of parasites by resplendent reef fish. We clutched onto barnacled boulders in stiff currents as schools of scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) effortlessly played in the same torrent an arms length away. We snorkeled with dolphins and had mobula (Mobula sp.) rays pass over head. There were sharks on all 32 dives and rays on many of them. I can’t realistically say how many sharks we saw, but “many hundreds” is an estimate that would not cause even the slightest debate.

Fortunately the country of Costa Rica, which claims stewardship of this storied place, has made a commitment to preserve it. Sharks are without a doubt on the minds of Costa Ricans; their 2,000 colon note, the equivalent to the US $5 bill has a hammerhead engraved on it. It is my fondest hope that the Costa Ricans have the resolve to keep up the fight in the face of pressure to exploit this World Heritage Site.

Sadly, I do not possess the communication skills necessary to describe this crown jewel of the elasmo kingdom adequately. Words and pictures do it no justice.

With time, Cocos becomes more a personal emotion than a place. The island twines itself into your soul and lovingly lingers there, asking only to be remembered when the world around you becomes more than you can bare.

Diving around the world as a job has its downsides. Some friends get slightly jealous. Others just hate me. Regardless of their reactions, I try to remain humble. As they say, somebody has to have more fun than everybody else.
Good luck has allowed me to ride this groove for almost 20 years. And now, with the digital photo revolution in overdrive, my enthusiasm has been rising like the stock market. However, after all that diving – more than a hundred trips to the Caribbean, countless jaunts to the far Pacific, Costa Rica, Galapagos, the Red Sea and everything in between – my resume only included two whale sharks. Not that I pursued them. I didn’t rush off to Ningaloo Reef in Australia where spotter planes lead divers to Mr. Big. I haven’t hung out in Honduras for months waiting for the feeding and breeding season. Like most of us, I relied on the happenstance method. And for two decades that technique failed miserably. All that changed in June 2003 when the remarkable became routine. Yet, I must caution readers with a jealous streak: If you read on, you will surely loathe me.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Cocos Island, Costa Rica. It’s something like 14 trips ever since my business partner, Bret Gilliam, dragged me there in 1995 and, against my better judgment, strapped me into an experimental rebreather before dropping me into a massive school of hammerhead sharks. I survived and was hooked forever. Each time back we’ve had a boat full of rebreathers and incredible diving. Even during an off year in 1997 when the normally prolific schools of hammerheads had dwindled in the approach of El Niño, squadrons of eagle rays and mantas appeared on almost every dive. Plus the water was Caribbean-esque, warm and clear. That’s the way it is at Cocos, always amazing and surprising.
On many occasions, after a great dinner and a glass or two of vino, we’d review the nautical charts and dream of a jaunt down to Malpelo, Colombia. Bret was one of the first to dive there back in 1992 and shared some memorable tales which always intrigued the crowd. The diving there can be mind-blowing but it’s a raw island, with nothing but sheer cliffs, no anchorage and zero protection from the weather. Boats have tried to dive it only to be chased away after a day or two by hellish wind and waves. In fact, when Bret went there in 1993, the vessel he was on sunk two of their dive pangas in the rough conditions and then the ship itself nearly sunk on the return voyage when an engine through-hull fitting broke loose during the rough passage. Water was nearly over the diesel engines before the designated watch-stander finally awoke to discover the impending disaster and activated an emergency pump with about a minute to spare. A handful of other liveaboards have had marginal luck but even in success, Malpelo has become known as a sometimes brutal journey to a rather inhospitable wasteland.

The only access to the island is a long metal catwalk jutting nearly 30 feet out from a vertical cliff face with a rope ladder dangling another 50 feet to the water. Long ago, the tiny Colombian army detachment based on the island banned visitors after several near disasters. I was just as happy to pass on that ride to Rockville. A decade ago on his last visit, Gilliam braved the ladder with his camera gear strapped to his back and visited the contingent of three forlorn soldiers who had been left there for over five months with no life support other than fish hooks and a few hundred pounds of rice. They were garrisoned in a makeshift wooden shack structure eking out a subsistence survival fishing off the cliffs and collecting rainwater in barrels as it cascaded off the tin roof. No rain: no drinking water and no bathing.
They welcomed him like Robinson Crusoe embraced his man Friday. No visitor or vessel had stopped in well over three months. After providing gifts of beer, hamburger meat and an assortment of candy bars, they were ready to appoint him King of Malpelo on the spot. He declined but had them schlep his camera gear up and down the steep peaks as he captured some images of the stark desolate landscape home only to a scattering of reptiles and some nesting birds. He finally asked what general’s daughter these idiots must have screwed in order to get assigned to this granite anvil baked by the equatorial sun. It turned out they had volunteered since it beat having the cocaine cartels shooting at them back on Colombia’s mainland. How’d you like that for a choice? Marooned on Malpelo or cannon fodder for Pablo Escobar’s drug army. There’s got to be a bad action movie part here for Ben Affleck somewhere. But underwater, it’s like Capt. James T. Kirk just shot you into a new universe.

We’d had a dialogue with our dependable buddies on the 120-foot Sea Hunter about trying Malpelo. The Sea Hunter has been our regular charter to Cocos Island for eight years and recently scheduled a handful of visits to Malpelo after striking a deal with Colombian officials that allowed them to go directly there without a stop for customs clearances on the mainland. The 400-mile trip from the port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica to Malpelo takes about 40 hours depending on sea conditions and how many times we can watch the Guns of Navarone on DVD. It’s a perfect amount of time to review rebreather procedures, get camera gear set up, and eat large quantities of grub expertly prepared by Chef Luis and his friendly staff.
I was armed with my five-megapixel Olympus digital camera, a Light & Motion Tetra housing and dual auto strobes by Sea & Sea. My "film" took up less space than my diver’s c-card because it’s just three, wafer-thin, 128-meg Smart Cards. Total investment: less than $200. I won’t have any film processing costs because the pixel gnomes develop each frame I shoot instantly. I’m in love with the magic. With smug satisfaction I stowed my small bag with my digital system and relaxed with a beer as Gilliam and the rest of the group struggled to drag their overweighted and bulky film camera gear aboard along with a duffle full of Kodak and Fuji film products.
In my world of instant results, there was no waiting and no expensive processing. Each 128-meg card stores about 40 high-resolution images which means I can take 120 keepers home. If I get lucky and fill up all three cards with excellent images (don’t place any bets on that), I can download the files to my computer, erase the card and keep on truckin’. In the end, I saved about 100 images. For backup, I downloaded the images to my hard drive. Then for extra safety, I even burned a CD. Triple backup. The CD got passed around to other laptop travelers who grocery shopped for the shots they wanted. We had more fun than a Pamela Anderson pajama party. Well, almost anyway.

The beauty of digital, as you have undoubtedly heard over and over, is instant feedback. You shoot and review through the tiny television set they’ve crammed into the back of the camera. If the shot is too dark, you turn up the strobe. Too light, back off the strobe. But, for me, that’s just the beginning. The simplicity of digital has won my heart. Loading a Smart Card is easier than swiping a credit card. Then to review the shots, you can just plug into a TV and run through them. I’m usually still damp from the last dive when I do my shot review. I’ll delete 70 or 80 percent of the shots and keep the cream. By the end of the trip, I’m done. All that’s left to do is print out the ones I want to hang on the wall, publish, or share with jealous diver friends. Even that has also gotten a lot easier with so many digital photo printers on the market. Again, for less than $200.
By comparison, the film shooters can only hope and guess at their results. Gilliam returned to find out that one of his treasured 30-year-old Sekonic light meters was faulty and he had under-exposed all his whale shark images taken with one camera system. Luckily, his other worked fine but he still ended up with about 20 rolls of wasted film. Sure, I screwed up a lot of shots… but no one even knew since I quickly erased them and only saved my masterpieces. And my mistakes cost me nothing. Plus I had instant status as Da Man when I played my stuff back on the salon TV after each dive

In addition to the delights from Luis’s galley, the 120-foot Sea Hunter is a superb support vessel, stable and roomy with enough space to let our 20 divers share this universe without even a hint of crowding. For diving, it’s equipped with two 26-foot launches (pangas), powered by twin 70-horsepower outboards. The drill is to divide the divers equally and send each boat to different sites. Inevitably, one panga returns to the mother ship first, hits the hot shower on deck and munches on platters of fresh fruit and warm snacks. As the second panga pulls up, each group eyes the other warily, wondering who has won ultimate bragging rights. That is, did anyone see a whale, a whale shark or a giant squid attacking a sperm whale? Those are pretty much hands-down winners.
After the first dive at Malpelo, our team got back first. We couldn’t wait to tell those other saps we’d seen a whale shark. As their panga approached we had that fluttering feeling you get right before you moon the cops as you drive by in your daddy’s car, (not that I ever did that). But something was strange. Their faces were painted in bliss and their thumbs were up. Bragging rights were still up for grabs: we’d all seen whale sharks – on our very first dive of the trip. Then things got freakier. Both groups saw whale sharks on the next dive, and the next dive and yes, on the next one too. Each team had made four dives, with whale sharks each time. Santa Claus had come early. People developed these silly grins and were bumping into each other around the boat as if we were all stoned on whale shark hormones. We had enough video for a Discovery Channel special and more photos than both Fathoms and National Geographic could handle.
Whale sharks are known to cruise Malpelo but the place is really famous for multitudes of moray eels and schooling silky sharks, sometimes in the hundreds. And the eels and silkies were showing up. But they were playing to an apathetic crowd because the big, lumbering white-spotted sharks kept stealing the show. Divers just love whale sharks, our gentle giants of the ocean – the poor morays and silkies didn’t have a chance in the pecking order. We figured we’d get to those guys when the big dudes stopped coming around.

Then on my fifth dive, all hell broke loose. I finally achieved TUVO, better known as Total Underwater Visual Orgasm. The dive site was Sahara, a blue-water plunge with one reference point, a patch of white sand a hundred feet down that slopes off into infinity. Currents can be tricky and getting disoriented is more common than not. After a quick descent, I hung mid-water at 60 feet looking down at a procession of scalloped hammerhead sharks silhouetted against the sand. Checking my camera settings while slipping deeper, I noticed a massive group of silky sharks appearing out of the blue and beelining me. I made the quick decision to arrest my plunge and shoot the silkies. After a few good frames, I’d continue to the sand for the hammers. I sized up the silkies in the viewfinder waiting for them to fill the frame, but my plan was interrupted by a new auditory presence that piped up about then.
As we learned in certification class, sound travels four times faster underwater. I’d heard those squeaks many times before. Dolphins! Hammerheads were scraping the sand 30 feet below me and a school of 100 silky sharks was within shooting distance when 15 dolphins screamed into view, spinning, diving and going nuts. I looked down at the hammers. To my port, the silkies advanced. To starboard, dolphins went berserk. My mind spun like a tornado and my camera became this metal thingy at the end of my arm. I had no idea what to shoot.
I was immersed in this maelstrom of a dive when I heard someone banging their tank. At the risk of turning my back on 100 silky sharks, I spun a quick 180. And there he was, off in the blue and coming right to me, a monster whale shark gliding along like a slow-moving torpedo. That’s when TUVO kicked in and my body quivered uncontrollably. I dropped my camera to my side and surrendered to Neptune. At that moment, I was surrounded by hammers, silkies, dolphins and a whale shark the size of Godzilla. All I could do was bask in the moment, giggle uncontrollably and wonder how life got this good. Then, five minutes later I was staring into the big blue void. Everything was gone except the stain on my wetsuit.

My first trip to Malpelo was not shaping up at all like I’d planned. Everyone had warned me about horrendous currents but so far the seas were calm. The wind and waves were supposed to be bad enough to make an anchor vomit. But the Sea Hunter barely swayed. And no one tipped me off about the whale shark phenomenon. The sun even shined most of the time. Part of that can be credited to our decision to visit in mid-June instead of winter and spring when the handful of prior voyages had taken place.
Our intrepid dive guides, Mario, Nico and Miguel, who had brought us good fortune in years past at Cocos, were working their magic once again. And since the currents were so calm, they decided to try Monster Rock, a massive pinnacle nearly 150 feet across that rises to within 10 feet of the surface and only a stone’s throw from our anchorage. It’s easy to swim around the rocky dome and the crevices are all jam packed with huge morays doing their best dancing cobra impersonations. If morays freak you out, scratch Malpelo off your list. Not only do six to 10 of these beefy suckers cram themselves into a single crack but they also swim about freely in broad daylight like they own the place. It’s weird and a bit scary but great for photos. In addition, like wolves, these morays can attack in packs producing a bone-chilling frenzy, (see page 58).
Monster Rock lived up to its name and more. The dusky creatures were a perfect backdrop to test my dual digital strobe setup. I lingered at one crack party for 45 minutes shooting a six-pack of eels and adjusting the strobes. After reviewing the images and seeing four or five keepers, I moved on to the scorpionfish next door. With 15 shots left on the card and at least another two hours of breathing gas left, I pondered the advantages of digital cameras and rebreathers. My contemplation was cut short when another familiar monster came a-calling – Mr. Whale Shark. Yep, Monster Rock added a new monster and became a double entendre, if you will.
Over the next several dives the pinnacle became an airstrip the whale sharks circled in their holding pattern. On one occasion two big boys followed each other as we trailed them like a flock of sheep. More video, more photos and more giddy whale shark hormones. It really started to become ridiculous. If we didn’t see a whale shark we were disappointed. How quickly we are jaded. In just four days, our group made 20 dives. On all but three we had whale sharks, not to mention plenty of hammers, silkies and morays along with an assortment of pelagics. It was so mind-blowing that on the final evening, we had a vote at dinner to stay or move on to Cocos. After a brief discussion, incredibly, we unanimously decided to head for Cocos. I think the general feeling was that if we tempted the marine gods even one more day after our bounty, we’d be turned into pigs like Ulysses’ crew. Anyway, we knew the massive schools of hammers awaited us off Cocos.

Cocos is a breathtaking departure from the stark barren rock of Malpelo. Characterized by lush jungle and cascading waterfalls, Cocos was the original inspiration for Jurassic Park and rightly so. While it’s often said "don’t go to Cocos if you’re looking to work on your tan," the island’s staggering amount of rainfall is also balanced by bright sunshine and clear skies. It’s a nice combination that ensures the verdant mountain cliffs and foliage will remain a psychedelic green while providing plenty of rainbows between drenchings.
Cocos was initially popularized by visiting buccaneers who used the island as a watering station and a place to hide the gold, silver and other riches plundered from merchant vessels of the era. The pirates of the 18th century were also responsible for introducing the legions of wild pigs that now roam the island. Absent a ready supply of fresh meat on their long voyages and wary of dropping anchor on the mainland where patrolling naval frigates might catch them, the pigs provided a self-sustaining barbeque on the hoof. Pigs have recently started to overrun other terrestrial species and threatened the vitality some of bird populations. This prompted several well-intended, but largely futile, attempts to reduce their population. But after ruling the forests for nearly two centuries, these locals have resisted every plan to cull their numbers and have even rudely chased off several teams sent out to hunt them. I’m betting the resilient pigs will prevail.
An interesting interlude between dives can be spent exploring the rocky beach at Chatham Bay where mariners passed the time carving messages and artwork into the rocks while their ships pro-visioned water and pigs. It’s the best anchorage at Cocos although Wafer Bay affords another protected harbor if the wind shifts. Unpopulated except for a contingent of park officials in Wafer Bay and a small interpretive station at Chatham, Cocos remains deliciously mired in a time warp of unequaled tropical lushness.
Legends still abound about undiscovered treasure troves, although divers would agree that the obvious real mother lode is the plethora of staggering abundance beneath its surrounding waters. There’s no disputing the fact that Cocos deserves its reputation as the apex "Big Animal" diving destination in the world. It has it all… in spades. And sometimes all in the same day. We’ve had times when sailfish, wahoo, tuna, whale sharks, hammerhead sharks, silky sharks, silvertip sharks, marble rays, manta rays, and even humpback whales have been encountered in the space of one sunrise to sunset. I’ve given up being surprised at Cocos. If it’s in the ocean and comes in size "large," you may very well see it on any dive here.
Of course, the real attraction for most divers is the infamous schools of scalloped hammerheads Numbering in the thousands, this majestic species cruises the adjacent pinnacles, rocks and sea mounts in a procession that is simultaneously breathtaking and daunting. Try to imagine what it would have been like to be the first diver to round the corner at Manuelita or Dirty Rock and come face to face with such a spectacle back in the days when sharks were misconceived to be perpetually on the verge of attack. That must have been a very soiled wet suit.

Nowadays a lucky handful of divers visit Cocos’ bounty and bask in the spectacle of the dramatic marine life. Rebreathers were a perfect match here as it allows our divers the type of "up close and personal" encounters that were previously impossible. The hammerheads particularly don’t appreciate bubbles and would disappear after short inspections of bubble-blowing scuba divers. Bret Gilliam used Cocos as a proving ground for rebreathers beginning in 1995 when he was CEO of UWATEC and the company handled worldwide distribution of the Dräger units. The rebreathers were such a perfect match that the liveaboards all provide training and rentals to their guests. All of our Fathoms trips are done with everyone on rebreathers to maximize the shark encounters and our luck has been nothing short of phenomenal over the years.
On the east side of Cocos, a cleaning station for big silvertip sharks was discovered by accident and now has become a major afternoon dive attraction. As many as ten of these beautiful sharks congregate over a shallow coral buttress and endlessly circle the site for the attention of the barberfish that remove parasites. Some of these females are over ten feet in length and probably weigh in at more than four hundred pounds. It’s not a site for the faint hearted and most divers will initially keep their distance at the spectacle of such large and frequently aggressive sharks circling in the reduced visibility and low afternoon twilight. As one who has grown quite fond of my extremities, I was astounded to watch Bret, Mario and Miguel position themselves immediately underneath the cleaning station while the sharks swarmed just inches over their heads. It makes for wonderful video footage and exciting photo images but Bret had to fend off two sharks with his camera one day to avoid what probably would have been a bite. Unfazed, he never stopped shooting until all four cameras were out of film. I, and most others, subscribe to the "discretion being the better part of valor" theory… but then again he gets better photos than we do.
Another recent phenomenon and a prime example of how nature adapts to outside influences is the night behavior of the usually mellow whitetip sharks that are seemingly everywhere. These are the Rodney Dangerfields of sharks since they get no respect from divers who tend to regard them as so much stove wood littered about the ocean floor. They are frequently kicked out of the way as divers search for the perfect vantage point to observe and film their large and more dramatic brethren. But nobody kicks them around at night anymore. Call it Revenge of the Nerds.
Because the whitetips have learned to hunt in the stream of light cast by divers’ lamps at night. And it’s a frenzy right out of Dante’s Inferno or some other suitable nightmare. Descending at dusk, our lights pick up the mad schooling of hundreds of whitetips as they stream among the coral heads in search of food. If a parrotfish or some other unfortunate critter such as an octopus is captured by our light path, well, it ain’t pretty. Scores of sharks converge instantly and the prey is simply extinguished. All this activity is happening about 12 inches below my fin tips as I give religious attention to my buoyancy control to stay just above the fray.
The action is so violent and so fast moving that it’s almost surreal. We rarely see any sharks feeding during the day but at night the carnage is non-stop. Surfacing from a one-hour night dive I find myself completely exhausted simply from adrenaline overload.
But we only saw one whale shark here. Ho hum. And even though I’ve been to Cocos many times, I’ll never tire of it. As always, the same sites were smoking. Alcyone, the deep-water plateau off the south shore, was buzzing with hundreds, maybe thousands, of hammerheads. Dirty Rock and Manuelita had white tips, hammers, marble rays as well as bigeye jack schools in the thousands. Thousand-pound tuna cruised by on occasion along with eagle-ray fly-bys now and then. Even after so many trips, my adrenaline still churns on every dive at Cocos, especially Dos Amigos Pequeños where the current and surge are so strong that making it to the bottom is a complete roll of the dice and getting swept around the pinnacle is common. But, if you do make it into the pin-cushion farm of black sea urchins on the rocks, the reward is hundreds of hammerheads passing crew-cut close.
By the time we made it back to Puntarenas, Mario and passenger Susan Galli, who brought down a DVD burner and portable hard drive for the onboard computer studio, had assembled an incredible 40-minute video of our monumental whale shark experiences. They even put music to it and burned DVDs for everyone on board. The final production could have fit seamlessly into the Blue Planet series. I knew it would turn out well when I saw the countless hours Mario and Susan put in. One late night as I walked past the studio, I heard Susan say, "I’m not sure that music is whale sharky enough."
I brought them another glass of wine and advised them to take the rest of the night off. It’s not that I want jealousy thrown at me. I just love this diving gig and like to share it with others. That’s why I’ve spent a month each summer in Costa Rica since the mid 1990s and have trips planned through 2006 – oh yeah, with a jaunt or two down to Malpelo mixed in. It’s not my fault that I can now say, "I’d really like to tell you how many whale sharks I’ve encountered but I’ve honestly lost count." Please don’t hate me.
Cocos is a dive destination that defies appropriate superlatives. So I’ll just conclude by directing your attention to the fine visuals contained in this article and my firm recom-mendation to all readers to visit at some time in their lives. This is no orchestrated shark feed or contrived petting zoo. It’s the real deal and you will never be the same once you’ve experienced it. It’s quite simply the most exciting diving you’ll ever experience. I’m hooked, I’m an addict, and no rehab program can help me!

An integral part of any dive trip is the relationship that divers form with the dive masters responsible for getting them to the sites. These relationships can make or break a trip and everyone has different expectations. Most experienced divers simply want a guide who gives good briefings and gets them on an exciting spot while being left alone to pursue their own interests. For newer divers, the dive master provides an invaluable service by, essentially, bird-dogging them to keep them out of trouble while easing the learning curve of buoyancy control, navigation, getting geared up and all the thousands of things that new divers need to be assisted with, so mistakes turn into positive learning experiences instead of survival situations.

In my business, the dive masters play a vital role in helping me anticipate predicted marine life encounters, sometimes helping with camera gear and lighting, as well as providing support for decompression and rigging specialized equipment. Of course, most professional dive masters are also instructors and frequently have expertise in either still photography or video. Some are good, some not so good. Some can be insufferable "scuba police" head cases who want to shepherd all dives to the lowest common denominator. (Think of the Cayman Islands typical dive master mentality through most of the 1990s.)

Mercifully, there’s less of that in the new millennium, probably due to the fact that experienced divers simply abandoned doing business with those types of operations. The dive masters that understand their guests’ needs and cater to providing that service without intrusion have flourished. Some have even attained "rock star" status with faithful customers following them when they change employers or locations. Larry Smith, generally considered the best dive guide in Indonesia, is a good example. Smith has been with a baker’s dozen of operators over the years and his name alone attached to a liveaboard can bring new business. Rob Barrel and Cat Holloway of the Nai’a in Fiji earn the same respect along with Lenny Kolcynski who starred on the Truk Aggressor and Peter Hughes’ Sun Dancer II before launching his own liveaboard in Truk with the Odyssey in 2000.

Deserving a place in the ranks of those exalted professionals are three of the permanent dive master crew of the Sea Hunter operation providing service to Cocos Island and Malpelo Island. Mario Arroyo of Costa Rica, Nico Ghersnich of Italy, and Miguel Sanchez of Spain are some of the best I’ve ever seen. All are TDI instructors and Senior Course Directors with ratings for nitrox, decompression procedures, and rebreathers to their credit. Each is fluent in several languages and possess that rare ability to bond with guests of all experience levels. Additionally, each man is an accomplished videographer and they regularly produce footage that equals or surpasses the best you’ll see on any natural history documentary or film release.
They are able to handle the needs of any guest and excel in helping divers transition the steep challenges of Cocos’ demanding dive conditions and mastering training in rebreathers. They each manage to be vigilantly watchful of guests and are quick to intercede when help is needed, while never overtly intruding into the divers’ enjoyment of a dive unless necessary. For well-experienced divers and professionals, their assistance is simply invaluable. Whether it’s pointing out the hard to find red lipped batfish, recognizing the first hazy approach of a whale shark in the blue gloom, dropping you into a school of hundreds of hammerheads, or sniffing out a bait ball formation, these guys have an innate sense of getting to exactly the right place at the right time. Basically, when in doubt, follow Mario, Nico and Miguel and you’ll be virtually guaranteed the marine life encounters you want.

They also are the social heart of the Sea Hunter operation and will eagerly pass on tips to aspiring photographers, help with camera gear glitches, and can seemingly repair anything in the field that dares to break down when you’re 400 miles offshore in the middle of nowhere with no spare parts. I’ve done hundreds of dives with these guys over the years and it’s my pleasure to turn the spotlight on them now and say "well done." They’re tops in their profession and divers of all levels will find their experience enhanced by their presence. Muchas gracias, amigos!

Along with its legendary propensity for forming immense schools, the scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) has a reputation as the shyest shark among scuba divers. So while anticipating my adventure to Cocos Island, my hopes for good shark-diving karma centered on an upward pass by a distant hammerhead school, perhaps a silhouetted memory of a lifetime.

Like many, I had heard stories of elusive, often difficult encounters with scalloped hammerheads on an open-circuit, resulting in the reported need for complicated rebeather units. My expectations had become dismal for an up-close encounter with this characteristic predator. As it turned out, however, when schools of hammerheads come to be cleaned, you might get a close buzz of a lifetime—even if you are blowing bubbles.

After diving with countless sharks the world over, I realized that many species were frequently apprehensive of close range encounters. From the untrustworthy look of a great white, to the watchful eye of a massive tiger shark, even the notorious species were often exceedingly cautious. Of course, any seasoned shark diver has had some all too close encounters; more than several kinds of shark will become the large apex predator of lore when the moment is right. But never did I think scalloped hammerheads would have the confidence to move in close with scuba divers.

I was wrong. Nichola Ghersinich, dive officer on the Undersea Hunter, summarized the experience by stating, “When the hammerheads come in, they come in.” Isla Del Cocos, or Cocos Island, is one of several unique locations worldwide where scalloped hammerheads routinely school in large numbers. As I would find out, it is also a place where they come in close range to divers.

Cocos Island lies 300 miles southwest of its host country Costa Rica—a thirty-six hour boat ride into the privileged loneliness of the eastern tropical Pacific. This UNESCO World Heritage Site has a storied history of whalers, buccaneers, and treasure, but its real wealth lies in the quantity and biodiversity of its marine life. From sharks, rays, and bony fish, to invertebrates and marine mammals, Cocos exceeds its reputation as one of the world’s most prolific marine sanctuaries.

Along with a myriad of other shark species—including white-tip reef, silky, silvertip, and whale sharks—numerous scalloped hammerhead sharks congregate off Cocos’s deep reefs. The scalloped name originates from prominent indentations along the wide leading edge of the head, a region known as the cephalofoil. This concaved head appears “scalloped” and on close inspection differs from the seven other members of the hammerhead shark family. Compared to conventional shark anatomy, hammerheads likely enjoy a unique biological advantage from their distinctive look. The much wider distribution of senses—such as electrical detection, increased lift and maneuverability—could support a strong Darwinian argument that the hammerhead is the best anatomically designed of all the shark species.

During the night, the sharks are presumed to head into deeper surrounding waters, extending 40 to 50 miles out, to hunt their prey of fast-moving squid and fish. In the morning, they often return in large schools, following the current from the deep blue. Several theories suggest hammerheads may school in part for mating purposes, although the entire significance of schooling behavior is still unknown.

Using geological formations as likely navigation aids, the sharks return to Cocos via seamounts and rock outcroppings. Often their most urgent business is a visit to several underwater locations that serve as busy cleaning stations. Diligent barber and king angel fish make the rounds as opportunistic cleaners—in return for the prompt ridding of irritating parasites on the sharks, the fish receive a ready and safe meal. As the two parties go about their symbiotic business, they clearly communicate with a common language of body posturing.

Forget the rebreathers. When hammerheads return from their deep hunting escapades to be cleaned, if their “mood” is right, you may be in for a close-up treat. The best encounters start by divers spreading themselves around up-current station locations at a depth of 80 to 120 feet. As the hammerheads materialize from the blue, some conventional scuba divers extend their breathing pause as the sharks approach directly overhead. When the sharks are in to be cleaned with fervor, however, individual sharks may cruise right into your new neighborhood, regardless of the nitrox trail.

For the lucky diver, the experience becomes an almost limitless parade of curious fly-bys, with large black eyes coolly checking you out. When conditions peak at sites like Alcyone and Dos Amigos, the sharks seem totally unphased by flash photography, and even obvious diver presence. The up-close experience provides an intimate appreciation, from the cephalofoil in action, to clear views of mating scars and flawless rows of bright-white teeth. It could almost make you forget the other outstanding diving opportunities around Cocos, with majestic silvertips, crowds of eagle rays, pushy silky sharks, friendly morays, and pods of dolphins.

This close interaction could make the hammerhead sharks of Cocos Island appear almost indifferent and unaffected by humans. The unfortunate truth is, however, that the sharks surrounding Cocos might be the most vulnerable. At this moment, just beyond the patrolled twelve-mile boarder to this World Heritage Site, fleets of long-line fishing vessels continue to rob sharks of their fins, with inhumane treatment and waste. Recent studies have shown dramatic population decreases in many shark species, with the hammerheads among the most depleted. The global community needs to preserve the dwindling shark resources before the point of no return, leaving the schools of hammerheads to follow their ancient routes, and future divers a close-range encounter with one of nature’s most spectacular shows.

Nestled in a rocky outcropping in roughly 65 feet of water, we stared out into the distance hoping to see the shadowy figures turn toward us. No doubt about it, those shadows were the faint outlines of Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks. They were cruising along the edge of visibility about 100 feet away.

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time diving Coco Island in the Pacific waters off Costa Rica. Experience has taught me that when the current is running toward us our opportunity for a close encounter is very good. During previous trips, I had found myself in the middle of schools of several hundred Hammerheads. It is truly a staggering sight. It seems only natural to think you would feel some fear, but odds are you won't. The scene is humbling, awe inspiring and unforgettable, but it is not frightening. On a number of occasions I have watched from a few feet away as the sharks were cleaned by King Angelfish, Barberfish and Hogfish. I was hoping for more of the same.

Despite my eagerness to swim toward the school, I knew it was best to wait, remain still and let the sharks come to me. High in the water column the school turned and headed our way. Soon I was able to make out some details on several of the closer sharks. I could see the outline of hammer shaped heads and towering dorsal fins. I looked down momentarily to check my camera settings and, when I looked up again, a huge silhouette blocked my view of the Hammerheads. The new arrival turned toward us and in an instant it was less than 40 feet away. It was the world's largest fish-a Whale Shark. These behemoths can be 40 feet long and weigh in excess of 30,000 pounds.

Seconds later this huge Whale Shark was in front of us. I got a great shot of its face and a few of my buddy, Madison Quartiano, swimming next to the four foot tall dorsal fin, before the shark slipped away into the distance. Moments later the shark reappeared. We swam with this docile giant for the next four or five minutes before losing contact, only to have it circle back for one last pass.

I knew our excited swimming and the explosion of exhaust bubbles had spooked the Hammerheads, but no one was complaining.


Three hours later we swam along the drop-off at Dirty Rock to try again. This time we found ourselves in the company of a large Manta Ray. Handsome, powerful and incredibly graceful, Mantas are stunning animals. The curious ray stayed with us for 20 minutes or so and, once again, if there were any Hammerheads around, our efforts had sent them in search of quieter water. We spent the rest of our dive admiring a squadron of Marble Rays and a handful of Whitetip Reef Sharks before ascending into a swirl of schooling jacks.

We still hadn't gotten close to the Hammerheads, but the diving had been phenomenal. It typically is at Coco.

Clearly, it is the opportunity to dive with a gathering of Neptune's superstars, adrenaline producing animals such as Scalloped Hammerheads, Whale Sharks, Silky Sharks, Whitetip Reef Sharks, dolphins, Manta Rays, turtles, billfish and whales that has put Coco on the diving map. Very few places in the world offer the chance to regularly dive with such a variety of big animals. Of course, there are no guarantees that you will see all, or any, of these creatures in any single trip, but all are commonly encountered at Coco.

If there aren't any Hammerheads or Whitetips around, the mix of reef fishes, invertebrates and residents of the sand community provide plenty of entertainment. The reefs are loaded with Moray Eels, colorful schools of snapper, Soldierfish, Leatherbass, octopi, lobster, Hawkfish, puffers, Trumpetfish and so much more. Observant divers frequently discover oddities such as frogfish and Redlip Batfish.

Isolated and remote, Coco is in the eastern tropical Pacific approximately 290 miles south of the port city of Puntarenas. If you look at Coco on a map, you might think it belongs to Colombia, which it did at one time. Today, however, Coco is part of the proud tradition of Costa Rican national parks.

Occupying only 15 or so square miles, the main island is tiny compared to the vastness of the surrounding sea. With deep water on all sides, Coco is a spire that rises dramatically out of the ocean depths; for all practical purposes it is the only reef area for hundreds of miles. While the waters teem with a diversity of marine creatures, the land is species poor as few animals took up residence here.

The weather at Coco is not the sort of thing the local Chamber of Commerce would boast about, if there was such a thing. The only people who live on the island are four Costa Rican National Park Service guards. From the water, the island is lush, sheer and stunning, with more than 200 cascading waterfalls. Of course, all that water has to come from somewhere. The average annual rainfall is in excess of 24 feet per year. In a lot of places that much rain would severely reduce visibility underwater owing to runoff, but that is not usually the case at Coco. The small island is surrounded by deep, current filled water that tends to carry away the mud and debris. The water temperature usually ranges from the mid 80s (°F) down into the mid 70s, but thermoclines where temperatures dip into the high 60s do occur.

Coco is the only island in the eastern tropical Pacific that supports a tropical rain forest. Not only is the island lush as a result, but fresh water played an important role in the island's storied past. It made Coco an excellent landfall for pirates and privateers who flourished along the Pacific Coast of the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. Estimates of the treasures buried by William Davies, Benito "Bloody Sword" Bonito and William Thompson between 1684 and 1821 approach $300 million and include the famed Treasure of Lima. Despite numerous expeditions, the island has given up only a handful of golden doubloons. For divers, however, there is no question the true treasure of Coco is the marine life found beneath the waves.

Coco isn't a destination for the newly certified; there are usually some currents and other factors to contend with. But for anyone who has some experience under his/her weightbelt and who has a sense of adventure, Coco has to be at the top of the list.

Getting to Coco requires a bit of travel. For most Americans the trip involves a flight to the capital city of San Jose, an overnight at an hotel, a two hour bus ride to the port city of Puntarenas and a 30 plus hour boat ride to the island. But the reward for your travels is true wilderness diving.

I love that feeling of being in the wild. I don't know exactly what I will see, but I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me to pay attention and be ready for big animals. Coco is not the most drop dead gorgeous place I have ever dived but if you want big and exciting, if you want to feel alive, to feel your heart race and your adrenaline flow, if you want to feel the raw power of wild animals and to witness the magnificence of nature, then Coco is the place to go.

Two lonely outpost perched on the empty blue field of the Eastern Pacific, Malpelo and Cocos Island draw pelagics in from hundreds of miles away. The Westmorlands set out these far away islands on the ultimate live-aboard trip.

It was the perfect prelude to an adventure. The Annual Explores Club Dinner in New York City was an exotic affair, with wine-marinated, rose hair tarantulas daintly offered as canapés to such luminaries as Sylvia Earle and Neil Armstrong. Mingling with diners dressed in a bizarre mixture of formal black tie and traditional native garb, we were there to celebrate “The Greatest Explorations of the Twentieth Century.” As fellow guest fumbled with barbecued scorpions and sautéed mealy worms, we pondered the current age of exploration. Scuba divers are one of the few groups of people who can visit somewhere utterly new on a two-week holiday. And we were just about to set off for two islands where exploration is still part of the diving experience.

Our cruise departed at noon from the industrial port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica. An hour after sunset, Bottlenose Dolphins frolicked before the Sea Hunter{s bow. It was pitch-black, and we had to grope our way along the rail. Riding the bow wave were a dozen seven-foot dolphins leaping, splashing and leaving bright trails in the bioluminescent water. The acrobatic cetaceans slapped their strong tails, sounding off sonic explosions and creating ethereal flashes of green light with little sparkles of sea fairydust. It reminded us of the Fourth of July.

Almost two full days after departing, we arrived at Malpelo in time for sunrise. The island, which is nothing more than a big rock about 900 feet high and twice as long, loomed through a haze of fog on the horizon. A primeval mood civilization. The outline of the island resembled an old man’s head as if he was lyong on his back: heavy brow, hooked nose and lower lip fallen to a shapeless chin. For such a barren rock, it seems odd that the name in Spanish means “bad hair.” Perhaps it’s a reference to the sparse grass and lichen that manage to eke out a meager existence there.

Even though we’d arrived on calm seas, the synergy of forces that coverge at Malpelo create formidable diving conditions. Cold layers of water around 60˚F meet warm surface layers of upper 70˚F water to form impressive up-wellings. Long swells that barely make a ripple on the open ocean meet the vertical rock cliffs of Malpelo and are converted into shifting swells and unpredictable currents. There are dozens of large caves and swim-through arches that have to be completely avoided because of the dangerous vortices, down-currents and surge. The shallow rocks are covered in baseball-sized, razor-shark barnacles; sea urchins vie with giant moray eels for the remaining real estate. The diving conditions are not for the faint-hearted.

With reef names like The Freezer, Monster Rock and Shark Place, the site of our first dive at Malpelo sounded relatively benign – Virginia’s Altar. After struggling into several layers of neoprene in the tropical heat, it was a relief to finally get in the water. At 78˚F, the surface layer was balmy. But after passing massive schools of grunts and surgeonfish near 40 feet, we were blasted by a colder layer of water. A brutal upwelling ushered in a temperature drop of at least 15˚F, which hit our bodies like a winter blizzard. Cruising just above the thermocline were hordes of Scalloped Hammerheads, apparently smart enough to stay in the warmer water. Hundreds of moray eels occupied every noon and cranny in the sloping wall. Easing back into the warm but murky water, we found that the swell had intensified. It was easiest to do what fish do – Just go with the flow. We were back in the pack of Bluestripped Grunts. Among them were trumpetfish that seemed to be the size of tubas. We had been told that every thing at Malpelo is unusually large. Only the hardiest individuals can survive the long trip from the nearest reef hundreds of miles away, so this ocean oasis offers premium examples of natural selection.

There are more large Green Morays at Malpleo than any where we’ve ever seen. They are so numerous that space is hard to come by, and legions of morays can be seen undulation over the reefs, often stalking prey.

In true exploratory fashion, we got to dive a virgin site that had been mapped the last time the Sea Hunter visited Malpelo. It turned out to be one of the best dives of the trip. It required a difficult descent in a ripping current to reach the trop of the mount at 90 feet. At 59˚F, this was the coldest water we had encountered on the trip, but it was worth the chill. Two orange-red Tassled Scorpionsfish, looking like blocks of molten lava, squared off on this current-blasted rock, which had never before been visited by divers. Octopi prowled the rock’s surface, while large groups of leather bass and snapper fed in a frenzy on small cardinalfish that hid among sea urchins. Colorful Pink Encrusting Sponge and vivid Orange Cup Corals covered much of the mount. Whitetip Reef Sharks cruised the perimeter, alongside squadrons of Green and Island Jacks. Bluefin Trevally bulleted through the tightly-packed schooling fish, testing the shoals for a straggler to snack on. Even hanging on the anchor line for our safety stop proved fascinating as planktonic octopi the size of my thumbnail drifted by. The site was duly named Hugo Rock, after our captain, who originally pinpointed it on the depth finder.

Our last dives on Malpelo were memorable for the quantity and size of Hammerheads we encountered. We saw colossal pregnant females that must have been nine feet long. Our best shark encounters took place near the numerous cleaning stations. And if you kept still in a rocky hiding place, held your breath and timed a brak in the slamming surge, you would usually be rewarded by an impressive broadside of Scalloped Hammerheads. They were stacked dozens deep and drifted into viewing range only to disappear when we exhaled. The dive ended on a high note: A school of Spotted Eagle Rays circled in what appeared to be a farewell salute.

Before heading off to Cocos, we tried in vain to find the fabled Rivadeneyera Seamount. Local fishermen tell tales of massive schools of sharks boiling in its waters. But, it remains a mystery for the next trip.

Arriving in the wee hours at Cocos Island, the first dawn view was one we’e never forget. The steep emerald cliffs were striped with dozens of spectacular waterfalls that cascaded for hundreds of feet. About 13 miles in curcumference, Costa Rica declared Cocos a National park in 1978 and a World Heritage Site in 1997. It now houses a small group of park rangers-mean and women present on the Island since 1993, who have devoted themselves to the study and protection of this uniquely wild place. A deep green rain forest blankets all but the steepest cliffs in dense jumgle vegetation. Cocos was the inspiration for Michael Christon’s Jurassic Park and also provided some of the dramatic footage shown in the blockbuster movie.

With the lush topside topography of Cocos contrastic so obviously with barrent Malpelo, we wondered what its underwater environment had in store ofr us. Our morning dive at el Bajo Manuelita brought a round of post-dive applause. The water temperature was balmy 82˚F, with visibility nearly 100 feet. A few Hammerheads were sighted, but they looked like babies after the bulky giants of malpelo. It felt quite strange to be suddenly diving in warm, clear water with only gentle surge, although we knew that conditions could change quickly. The sea life was similar to Malpelo in terms of prolific schools of fish. But unlike Malpelo, Whitetip Reef Sharks and Marbled Rays can be seen all over the reefs. There are also a great many lobsters, which crawl around in the open or cluster together in crevices in groups of up to 20.

The best dive site of Cocos – and possibly the best in the Pacific – can be seen at a legendary seamount known as Alcyone. Names after the Cousteau Society boat that made the visit in 1987, it can be a testing dive. The most shallow portion of this craggy and irregular seamount is about 90 feet deep. Currents can be extreme, but the fish life is always awesome. Only one dive per day is allowed because of the depths involved, so we returned there on four successive mornings. Highlights included: A Whale Shark that circled the seamount five times; the best Hammerhead encounters of the trip six Mobula Rays swimming together near our ascent/descent line; mating Whitetip Reef Sharks; courting behavior with groups of Marbled Rays; monstrous Yellowfin Tuna; and giant schools of jacks and grunts.

Who would have guessed that two lonely remote islands could be home for such and underwater community.

For more than three centuries, wherever and whenever storytellers gather to relay the tales and legends of the sea, one constant theme reprises itself time and time again. The theme is of an island, unique throughout all the islands of the world. An island small and remote, set far away in the shark-infested waters of the Pacific Ocean. An island mountainous, rich with waterfalls and fresh water, covered in dense tropical foliage rising above the rocky cliffs of its forbidding shore. An island where pirates have buried their great treasure hordes, treasures of inestimable wealth that remain undiscovered to this day. An island home to strange and fantastic animals, experienced by a fortunate few lucky enough to have returned to tell the tale.
Every few decades, the story of this island is revisited with a new author’s variation on the theme; writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island), Edgar Wallace and Ruth Rose (King Kong) and Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) have all mined this treasure-island vein and made their fortunes.

But this archetypal treasure island is not to be found only on the maps of the imagination: it truly exists and is known today as Isla del Cocos, (or Cocos Island, to English speakers), although no one can be certain why it was thus named.
Cocos first appeared upon Frenchman Nicholas Desliens’ map of 1541 as Ile de Cocques – which means ‘nutshell island’ – a true mystery, for there are neither nutshells to be found upon the island nor does the island itself physically resembleanything like nutshells. The current usage of ‘Cocos’ is thought to be an anglicized derivation of the enigmatic French name. (The island was claimed as sovereign territory by the government of Costa Rica in 1869, making the ‘island’ into ‘isla’, but that still leaves the ‘cocos’ to the imagination.)
Cocos has an irregular coastline, which makes estimation of land area more a matter of opinion than a surveyor’s science, but it is roughly 5 miles long by 2 miles (12km x 5km) wide. The island was formed during a volcanic upheaval around two-and-a-half-million years ago and is composed from lava flows of basaltic rock, labacorite and andecite. Its landmass is made up of four mountain peaks, the highest of which is Cerro Yglesias, at 2,080ft (634m). Cocos receives an average of 25ft of rainfall per year, resulting in lush green foliage and plentiful waterfalls (up to 70 waterfalls of varying sizes, during the peak of the rainy season). The island supports a verdant, high-altitude cloudforest – made possible by the abundant rainfall and surplus water stored in the porous reservoirs of the island itself – which is unique to Cocos alone of all the islands of the Eastern Tropical Pacific (Clipperton, the Revillagigedos, the Galápagos Islands, and Malpelo). Because of the heavy rainfall, the island is prone to frequent landslides, which somewhat accounts for its irregular geography.

The island has two large bays with safe anchorages and sandy beaches on its north side: Chatham and Wafer. Just off Cocos are a series of smaller, basaltic, satellite rocks and islets, the largest of which is Isla Manuelita (formerly Nuez).
The terrestrial life of Cocos exhibits a high number of endemic plant species (around 70) out of the 235 vascular plant species identified; 25 species of moss; 27 species of liverwort and 85 species of fungus. There are upwards of 87 bird species, including the endemic Cocos Island cuckoo, finch and flycatcher. There are 362 species of insect, of which 64 are endemic, andtwo endemic reptiles. Beneath the waterfalls and in the rivers are freshwater fish that mystify scientists with their very existence.
The history of Cocos Island is rich with pirates and explorers, adventurers and dreamers. Portuguese Captain João Cabezas is thought to have been the first to have made a written record of the island in 1526, but whether it was ‘known’ prior to that orif Cabezas could claim to be ‘the first to discover it’ remains unknown.
Because of its remote location and abundance of fresh water, Cocos has long been a favourite waystation for pirates, whalers and sailors. Early visitors introduced pigs and deer to the island as a self-perpetuating source of fresh meat; to this day, feral pigs and deer abound, much to the detriment of the island’s indigenous ground-nesting birds; and responsible for hastening soil erosion by vegetation degradation.
In 1685, buccaneers led by Captain Edward Davis sacked the city of León in Nicaragua. They chose Cocos as the site to hide their treasure, thus beginning a tradition and the island’s reputation – and ultimately an enduring legend, of ill-gotten, untold wealth hidden on Cocos Island. This treasure was said to be buried in Chatham Bay, but whether it was later unearthed and removed is a matter of speculation.

The most valuable treasure said to be buried (or to have once been buried) on Cocos is the fabled Treasure of Lima. According to legend, in 1821 a Captain Thompson was entrusted with ten years’ accumulated wealth mined from the South American continent. He was supposed to safeguard thisproperty of the King of Spain by sailing well offshore for a period of time until invading armies advancing upon Lima, the capital of Peru, could be defeated and he could return the treasure to its rightful owner. It was supposed to be a charter with an honest sailing ship, with the king’s trusted guards in attendance ‘just in case’ but the temptation was said to be too great; Thompson and his men dispatched the guards and took off with the treasure that had been loaded on board. Naturally, Thompson chose Cocos as the spot to hide the treasure, said to be worth US$300 million (in today’s currency). Thompson was captured at a later date but the treasure has never been recovered.
This story of The Treasure of Lima and Cocos’s role as island depository served as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island: a case of Cocos lore providing the basis for a fictional story and the fictional story, in turn, adding to the legend of the ‘true’ story.

Piracy was a lucrative industry in the 1800s and none was more successful than Benito ‘Bloody Sword’ Bonito, a Portuguese sailor turned pirate. After a prosperous run in the Atlantic, and with the British Admiralty actively hunting him, Bonito moved on to the west coast of the New World, plying his trade from the coasts of Mexico to Chile. The Spanish outposts were simply too far from Europe and thus poorly defended. Tremendous quantities of gold were being mined and taken from Mexico by the Spaniards, and Bonito and his men successfully took it from them. They had a glut of gold and jewels and a problem that was perpetual to pirates – that of where to store their loot so that it would be safe from… pirates. In 1865 however, the answer was Cocos, which Bonito found perfect as a base for operations. However, his men disagreed about keeping both their share and themselves in a place remote from the ‘enjoyments’ their loot could buy.
After putting down a near-mutiny by some of them, Bonito reluctantly agreed to divide up their cache of treasure, with the traditional ‘Captain’s Third’ to himself and the rest divided among his men. With one of the prerequisites of being a pirate being dishonesty, each individual is rumoured then to have gone off, in secret, and buried their treasures in a spot known only to themselves; so that they might return to the island, at another time, and recover their own personal shares without fear of treachery from shipmates. Bonito would have needed a good deal of help with his shares of the treasure and it is said that he blindfolded men and had them carry his haul over the island before digging holes and then burying it. He then brought the men back to the ship, still blindfolded, so that he was the only one to know where exactly the treasure was buried. The stuff of legend, if not logic.

Bonito died in battle some time later and his men were caught and hanged. And the treasure? No one can say forcertain. Many have searched Cocos but no one has claimed – nor can offer proof – to have found it.
Over the years many treasure-hunters have mounted expeditions to Cocos. A man named August Gissler was granted half-ownership of the island while he spent 19 years and tens of thousands of dollars searching for the treasures of Cocos. Unsuccessfully. Many partnerships were formed, and treasure companies descended upon Cocos using the most modern of technologies available and expending countless man-hours in search of the stuff of legends. Unsuccessfully.
Quite possibly, more money has been spent searching for treasure on Cocos than could realistically be buried there. It is said that more than 500 expeditions of varying size and degree of seriousness have been conducted on Cocos, looking for any treasure whatsoever. Most recently, the Costa Rican government has sold permits for hundreds of thousands of dollars to allow new generations of treasure-hunters, with the latest, greatest, sure-fire technology, to continue the search. Regardless of the failures of past treasure seekers, you can be certain that out there, right now, are new expeditions being planned; for as long as there is the lure of buried treasure, there are schemers and dreamers who think they know better – or will have more luck – than those who have gone before.
One thing is without doubt: the only tangible treasures to be found at Cocos with any certainty are its scenic beauty and its richly abundant sealife.
The first major scientific survey expedition of Cocos in the 20th century took place in 1925 when the New York Zoological Society mounted its first oceanographic expedition, to the Pacific, on a millionaire’s borrowed yacht, the 2,400-tonne Arcturus. On board was the organization’s director of Tropical Research, William Beebe; a man who would reach the heights (well, actually depths) of fame and exploration in 1934, when he and Otis Barton climbed into a small, steel bathysphere and descended half a mile down into the ocean off Bermuda. He was one of the first to visit Cocos and write about it and its sealife for mass readership; his written accounts of exploration and adventure in South America, at Galápagos and Cocos were bestsellers of their day.

Beebe was also the first man to dive by himself, beneath the waters of Cocos, to a depth of 30ft, in a 60lb copper diving helmet with surface-supplied air. He describes battling strong currents at the site of his singular dive (recognizable today as the shallow reef of Manuelita in Chatham Bay) with its abundance of surgeonfish, triggerfish and plentiful whitetip reef sharks. He sighted a tiger shark he estimated to be 18ft long and described his moments of apprehension: ‘There could be no thought of escape by flight. I crouched close to my wisp of sea-fan, although hiding behind it was as effective as an attempt to conceal oneself behind a handful of ostrich feathers.’ But the shark, uninterested, swam off and disappeared, leaving Beebe to surface, and write his popular book The Arcturus Adventure.
Two other members of the expedition were historian Ruth Rose and assistant of photography Ernest B. Schoedsack. Both would be so inspired by their visit that when their careers took them to Hollywood a few years later, Cocos Island would provide the inspiration for the remote and mysterious island home of King Kong in the classic film of the same name. (Ruth Rose went on to co-write the film’s novelization with Edgar Wallace; Schoedsack co-produced the film.)
American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was fascinated by Cocos Island, visiting it and its high-profile treasure-hunting expeditions in 1935, 1938 and 1940. During

his first visit, the President went fishing in the rich waters and was rewarded with catching and landing a sailfish; a first for an acting US president. In honour of his visits, an endemic species of palm tree was named after him: Rooseveltia frankliniana.
Austrian diving pioneers Hans and Lotte Hass sailed to Cocos on the Xarifa for an underwater filming expedition in 1954. Using their oxygen rebreathers, the team dived the northern coast of Cocos, at Wafer and Chatham Bays. Hass’s experiences led him to write (in We Come From the Sea): ‘Cocos may be the prototype of all treasure islands but it is surely also to be reckoned as the foremost of all shark islands.’ On his dives, Hass noted the abundance of whitetip reef sharks, sharks which – as he describes them – can only be silvertip sharks, large hammerhead sharks and he even had an encounter with two tiger sharks, all of which he captured on film at the time.
It is interesting to note that both Beebe and Hass had tiger shark encounters on their visits to Cocos, but there have been no substantiated sightings of tiger sharks among the tens of thousands of dives that have occurred since Cocos became a major scuba diving destination in the late 1980s. The question is: what happened to the tiger sharks? Have they become so shy – or have they been wiped out?

In the mid-Seventies, Jacques Cousteau’s son, Philippe, flew the Cousteau team’s seaplane to Cocos to make a general reconnaissance. Philippe and his crew landed in Chatham Bay and deployed an inflatable to visit the shores. They studied the rock inscriptions made by passing sailors and examined the abandoned excavations of departed treasure-hunters. The team had the opportunity to make a few scuba dives and its members were enthralled with the abundance and diversity of sealife. They did not have the chance to fully explore the island and the seas around it, but the potential was so full of promise that they intended to return and explore more fully at a later date.
Tragically, Philippe was killed in a plane crash before he could return with a full diving expedition, but the Calypso’s sister ship, Alcyone, came to Cocos in the 1980s to carry on the exploration and Philippe’s legacy.
While filming at Cocos, the Cousteau team made an obligatory, cursory search for treasure and ended up finding the wreckage of an American B-24 bomber that had inexplicably crashed into the side of Cerro Yglesias in 1943. One of the many discoveries made during the dives at Cocos was the presence of a soccer field-sized sea mount rising from deep water a mile offshore of the south side of the island. This sea mount is now known as Alcyone (after the ship) and it serves as a gathering point for vast schools of pelagic fish and a resident population of scalloped hammerhead sharks.
A more disturbing discovery was the prevalence and impact of unchecked illegal fishing. Although Cocos Island had been designated as a National Park by the Costa Rican government in 1978 (and granted further ‘protected status’ in 1982) with commercial fishing banned within 3km of the island, fishermen wholly ignored and violated the law. Transient boats from the Costa Rican mainland and Ecuador routinely sailed to Cocos to poach lobster and longline sharks and other pelagic fish. A handful of men had been stationed on the island to protect the new park, but without even a patrol boat they were completely ineffective at stopping the illegal fishing. According to the Cousteaus, some fishermen were taking 800lbs of lobster per trip and untold numbers of sharks, most of which were finned (the deplorable practice of cutting the fins off living sharks and dumping their finless bodies back into the sea).
The Costa Rican government was forced to start addressing the illegal fishing problem when Cocos Island became an international scuba diving destination in the 1980s. The first ‘dive boats’ were mostly sailboats, such as the Victoria and the Evoi, and they made intermittent visits a few times a year, bringing fewer than a dozen divers at a time. These early boats were geared for only the most intrepid and adventurous travellers and were simple, unsophisticated operations. The use of these vessels ended in the late 1980s and in the 1990s were superseded by the arrival of larger, regularly scheduled, dedicated liveaboard ships: the Okeanos Aggressor; Undersea Hunter; and Seahunter.
The arrival of these heavily advertised, professional diving operations changed the face of Cocos diving by bringing comfort and safety to one of the most remote diving destinations. These operations and their owners also changed Cocos Island itself by bringing hundreds of visitors each year, including journalists and proactive environmentalists, both of whom paid a national park fee (which, ideally, was to help fund the rangers) and more importantly, brought worldwide publicity to this remote island and its environmental problems. Thousands of articles appeared in numerous magazines as diverse as Forbes, Stern and Paris Match, in addition to most wildlife, outdoor adventure and scuba diving magazine around the world. Strangely, the only magazine not to do a feature on Cocos was National Geographic.

The new accessibility to Cocos for visitors also brought access for film and television productions, as well as worldwide attention to a place that was once upon a time, little more than just a rumour. In the past 15 years, there have been literally dozens of television documentaries and hundreds of new features filmed at Cocos, the most famous (and best) of which was Howard and Michele Hall’s recent IMAX production, Island of the Sharks (1999). The positive effect of all this publicity was to cajole the Costa Rican government into taking some positive action to protect its own resources.
With dive boats making regular itineraries to Cocos Island, the Park Service had, for the first time, a regular link with the island. Being stationed on Cocos was no longer a case of being stranded for an open-ended period of time. There was now a regular supply line: bringing fresh food to the park service and materials to expand its facilities, as well as transferring visiting researchers and rotating shifts of park service rangers. The competing dive operators joined forces to donate radios and a small patrol boat and an engine so the rangers could intercept (or at least witness) illegal fishing at sea. Slowly, the park service stationed on Cocos, under the direction of the late Joaquim Alvarado, began to expand its base of operations and to extend its influence to interdicting illegal fishing and to making policy with government support.
Still, it was and remains an uphill battle. While poaching of the lobster has been eliminated, illegal longline fishing continues at the periphery and often – emboldened at night by the cover of darkness – within the park’s nautical boundaries. The longline sets, which are often mile upon mile in length, do drift with the currents and regularly sweep through the park’s waters, taking sharks, tuna and billfish without regard to park boundaries. It is not unusual to find longline sets wrapped around Cocos’ pinnacles, taken by the currents and leaving evidence of the carnage of their catch upon the sea bottom.
The Costa Rican Navy occasionally sends patrol boats to intercept illegal fishing boats but unfortunately, they catch only a small percentage of the violators. Fines, confiscation of equipment and imprisonment of fishermen is rarely enforced in a country where familial ties and payoffs are a way of life.
Cocos Island may perhaps be the crown jewel of the Costa Rica National Park system; sadly, very few Costa Ricans, save a few park service rangers, employees of the dive operations and illegal fishermen, have ever or will ever visit ithe island. Thus the question is: How can a country be expected to protect a resource which most of its own people will never see (except in seafood markets)? A park, which is, although proudly spoken of by Costa Ricans (again, who have never been there), derided or shrugged off as being ‘for the ‘gringos’. (Currently, Cocos receives around 1,200 visitors a year; almost all are scuba divers, from countries other than Costa Rica, the majority of whom never set foot upon the shore of Cocos Island.)
In spite of the seemingly insolvable illegal fishing problem, non-governmental organizations have poured vast sums of money into Cocos to try at least to foster an atmosphere of conservation. Slowly, the Costa Rican government has responded with somewhat tighter enforcement measures and by doing so, after more than a decade of lobbying by these organizations, Cocos Island was designated a United Nations World Heritage site in 1997. If the people of Costa Rica can preserve Cocos Island and its waters, then the true treasure of the Cocos Island can be kept safe and enjoyed by many generations to come.
The diver’s first view of Cocos Island will typically be in the pale light of dawn; it’s a refreshing sight after the monotony of a 35-hour voyage from the mainland. One by one, divers blearily emerge from their cabins, roused by the clatter of the anchor. Only a few cursory pleasantries are exchanged as they pad about the deck, marvelling at the view. From the impenetrable jungle, swarms of sea birds wheel and circle, screeching their welcome. In the frenzy of imagination that accompanies the first sighting of Cocos, you could be forgiven for thinking they are pterodactyls, soaring on prehistoric thermals. Before long, the emergent sun is blazing down with equatorial intensity, bathing the island’s lush slopes in light. The scene is utterly spellbinding, but the divers are even more interested in what awaits them under the water.

Let’s pick a typical site at Cocos and go for a dive. The unpredictable nature of the island and its visitors means that each site is in a constant state of flux, but the sea mount known as Alcyone was consistently providing rewarding encounters at the time of writing. In many ways, Alcyone offers a good, broad introduction to Cocos, as many of the island’s marine visitors congregate there in large numbers.
The chase boats (pangas), take you on a picturesque tour along the eastern side of Cocos, then down the southern shore, where sheer cliffs plunge into the ocean. Above the cliffs, the summit of Mount Yglesias is shrouded in a perpetual mist, as if the island itself is reluctant to give up its secrets. The brief boat-ride takes you to a place off the southwest point, where the dive guides deploy a small anchor. This is essential for a safe descent, as the currents that blast this submerged pinnacle are unpredictable. At the surface it may seem motionless, but a current could blow you clean off the site by the time you have reached 15m. So, you descend with a wary hand on the anchor-line, gazing down into the blue-grey infinity. For a while, you think the whole dive may be some cruel hoax, that the anchor is just hanging in blue water and the dive guides are having a joke at your expense back on the boat. They’re not. After a few moments (the descent is on a diagonal rather than a vertical line, so it can take three or four minutes), an outline of the sea mount appears below you. A few unthinking divers may choose to let go of the line before reaching the mount, but they could be letting themselves in for an exhausting swim. Keep a hand on the line until the descent is complete.
On the way down, you will see small groups of hammerhead sharks swimming over the sea mount. From above they are dark grey, and very hard to spot: you have to look for their trademark swaying movements. As more divers arrive at the site, the sharks will mostly be seen over the drop-off, although some will occasionally swim right over your head.
The shallowest part of Alcyone is about 26m below the surface. The top of the sea mount is about the size of three tennis courts, with drop-offs on all sides. Although you can find sporadic patches of coral all around Cocos, Alcyone’s topography consists of jagged volcanic rock and patches of white sand. Long spined black sea urchins are ubiquitous. Reef whitetip sharks (Triaenodon obesus) are everywhere: most of them are content to laze on the rock in groups of up to 15, their jaws opening and closing slightly as they move water over their gills.
Marbled rays (Taeniura meyeni) are similarly content to spend their idle hours resting in large groups. When you approach to within less than a metre, the rays move off with a gentle roll, often displaying the stinging barb at the end of their tails. They are not aggressive, and appear only mildly irritated by the intrusions occasionally made by curious divers.
There are always large aggregations of fish on sea mounts such as Alcyone. Immediately noticeable are the predatory jacks which constantly swoop over its lunar surface, testing the ubiquitous Pacific creolefish (Paranthias colonus), a cousin of the grouper that provides the basis of the diet for larger predators here. Over the course of a week’s diving, you will probably see a dozen different jack species, but here at Alcyone, thuggish bluefin trevally (Caranx melamphygus) and almaco jacks (Seriola rivoliana) dominate. The almacos grow to more than a metre in length, and have absolutely no fear of divers. Sometimes they brush their silver flanks against divers to dislodge parasites: it can be alarming if you don’t understand what they’re doing! If you want to have a good dive at Alcyone, or at any submerged sea mount dive at Cocos, head into the current. It won’t do to fin like a madman for the duration of the dive, but you should swim to the drop-off where you should try to wedge yourself into a comfortable position from where you can watch out for one of the most spectacular sights in the natural world.
If Cocos Island is famous for one thing, it is the scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) that congregate in schools of hundreds, often thousands. It’s possible to see such schools at other sites in tropical waters, but Cocos and Malpelo (and possibly Wolf and Darwin islands in the Galápagos) are the only places where schooling hammerheads in large numbers are virtually a guaranteed sight.
Studies on scalloped hammerheads in the 1980s showed that their swimming patterns are highly directional; they swim around the sea mount in expansive circles, with only slight changes in course over long periods. Marine biologist Peter Klimley describes sea mounts as hubs around which large schools of hammerheads like to cluster. The sharks map out their journey by the invisible magnetic valleys and ridges which radiate like wheel spokes from these geological formations. It has been shown that hammerheads are both long-distance and vertical migrators, following the magnetic roads to deep-water feeding grounds by night, gorging on a meal of squid, then returning to the shallower waters at the top of the sea mount at dawn. This nightly round trip is a remarkable feat of navigation, because the sharks are not able to use the surface or the sea bed for specific routes with the help of their highly developed sensory apparatus. There has been much debate over the likely reason for the shark’s distinctive features. It is widely accepted that the ‘hammer’ design succeeds in spreading the shark’s electromagnetic receptors, eyes and nostrils over a larger area. In fact, the feature could have a dual purpose: studies have suggested that the broad, flat head gives the shark added lift when swimming, like the design of a hydroplane. It also seems to increase the manoeuvrability of the shark, possibly by decreasing the turning radius. One writer, Paul Budfer, has suggested that the lobes may also be a detriment, and could be easily be damaged in a tussle with a tiger shark or a great white shark. Budfer believes that hammerheads are the most recently-evolved of the sharks, and could represent something of a dead end in terms of evolution. ‘It’s really rather difficult to assign the concept of ‘detrimental development’ to an animal‘, ‘but overspecialization is thought to be one of the major causes of extinction.’
Watching the hammerheads swarm over Alcyone, it’s hard to regard them as one of Mother Nature’s botched experiments. Yet the sharks’ extreme sensitivity certainly makes them hard to approach. They abhor the sound – or possibly the disturbance – made by divers’ bubbles, so anyone who insists upon diving in a large group will not get close to the sharks. The best plan is to find a cleaning station manned either by barberfish (Johnrandallia nigrirostris) or king angelfish (Holacanthus passer). These cleaning stations are regularly visited by sharks, which are more likely to tolerate your close presence when they are being attended to by the cleaner fish.
More often than not, the buddy system is completely ignored at Alcyone; divers concentrate upon moderating their breathing as they peer into the blue, waiting for ghostly shadows to appear. It is easy to become absorbed by the vigil, but at Cocos anything is possible. At any point, the sea mount could be visited by oceanic wanderers, such as the silky and Galápagos sharks that are known to stop by. Or, as occurred earlier this year, a group of divers ignored the hammerheads entirely when an inquisitive whale shark arrived at Alcyone. It circled the sea mount repeatedly and then approached the divers at close quarters.
Faced with distractions such as these, it’s all too easy to
lose track of mundane considerations such as air and time. Even with the benefits of nitrox, you can only expect to get about 30 minutes on the sea mount before running into decompression. More potential decompression accidents take place at Alycone than any other site at Cocos, thanks to the beguiling combination of big fish, big walls and big currents. However, even as you make your way back up the anchor line, the show is not necessarily over. The hammerheads can often be seen as shallow as 8m, and there is usually a curious wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri) waiting to entertain you during the final safety stop at 6m. It’s also worth keeping an eye out for mobula rays (Mobula tarapacana), diminutive cousins of the manta, which enjoy bathing in diver’s bubbles. Never try to follow or chase a mobula ray: they will approach you quite closely if you stay still and breathe out lots of bubbles. Schools of up to a dozen rays – known as Chilean devil rays in Central America – are regularly seen at Cocos. Alcyone’s strength is that it encapsulates the key elements of Cocos in a single dive, but if you really want to appreciate the complexity of the island’s marine ecosystem, you have to visit some of the other famous sites.
Check-out dives are usually carried out at Manuelita Island, the largest of Cocos’ satellite islands. The front side of Manuelita faces the open sea and offers a good chance of seeing hammerhead schools. This is also a good site for manta rays (Manta birostris), which can occasionally be seen soaring along the wall, scooping planktonic snacks into their capacious maws. The dive presents you with a sloping wall, strewn with house-sized boulders. Every surface is plastered with macro oddities: algae, hydroids, Christmas tree worms and countless tiny blennies, which dart in and out of their holes. The most common of these is the endemic Cocos barnacle blenny (Acanthemblemaria atrata), which is seen practically everywhere at Cocos up to a depth of 20m. There must be millions of these fish around the island.
Night dives are usually carried out on Manuelita’s rear side, which faces the sheltered waters of Chatham Bay. It is bordered by a shallow coral reef that offers countless opportunities for macro photographers. It is a common misunderstanding that Cocos is devoid of coral growth, but there are several reefs here, living at the edge of their physiological tolerance limits for temperature (both hot and cold, due to the many currents that converge on Cocos) and water clarity. Before the El Niño event of 1983, the coral gardens at Cocos were considered some of the best in the eastern Pacific.
There is not a great variety of coral here, as the larvae have to survive an 8,000km journey from the Line Islands of the central Pacific. It is thought 90 per cent of the coral died during the 1983 El Niño, and the damage from the even stronger 1997/98 event has yet to be assessed. Since 1992, only six of the 19 shallow-water coral species previously seen at Cocos have been observed on the reefs. Meanwhile, the increased availability of algae (which rapidly colonize the coral skeleton) has fuelled the march of sea urchins, which advance across the reefs in great huddles, like huge black porcupines. Still, night dives offer a chance to track down the shy jewel moray (Muraena lentiginosa), which continually opens and closes its mouth to breathe.

Cocos divers are a committed bunch. (Some might opine that they should actually be committed... to a room with padded walls wearing jackets with sleeves that tie behind you.) First of all, it's not a cheap investment and there's the little matter of a two-day sea crossing of nearly 400 miles just to get there. Upon arrival you are afforded the opportunity to be surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands) of schooling hammerhead sharks. And tuna the size of NFL linemen, mantas, various billfish, dolphin, bait balls, scores of marble rays the size of coffee tables, and a million or so schools of big eye jack and other species I'm still trying to identify. And, oh yeah, you've got an odds on chance of swimming with a whale shark or two and seeing a humpback whale.
Fred Garth and I began leading trips to Cocos back in 1996 when we used the Sea Hunter fleet and the Okeanos Aggressor as a proving ground for the first editions of the Draeger semi-closed circuit rebreather. If there was ever a location that was a better match for the silent stealth of rebreathers, I can't imagine where we might look.
Cocos had already made its reputation as the best big-animal dive region in the world. The advent of affordable rebreathers just made it better. Sort of like initially visiting the wild animals of the African Serengetti from a mile away through a spotting scope and then donning a cloak of invisibility to walk among them up close.

Prior to 1996, if you wanted to have any real chance at close encounters with the legendary schooling hammerheads, you were forced to dig in to a nook on the bottom, wait for a wave of sharks to approach, and then hold your breath as long as you could. Once the exhaust bubbles billowed upward, the sharks immediately faded away and wouldn't return for at least 20 minutes or so. Considering the duration of an aluminum 80 at 100-plus feet for the average diver, this pretty much meant one brief viewing per dive.
Rebreathers changed all the rules, for both man and fish. Now we could plan dive times of up to 90 minutes at pretty much any depth we wanted without concerns about running out of gas. By careful matching of the supply nitrox gas to the system's replenishment orifice flow, we could almost completely eliminate any bothersome bubbles from even semi-closed circuit models.
The last piece of the equation was getting enough rebreathers out to Cocos so that every diver that went in the ocean was using one. 'Cause all it takes is one noisy bubble-belching, open-circuit diver within a quarter mile and we were right back looking at the lions from a telescope. And having been close enough to, figuratively, smell their breath... it was tough to go back to shooting pictures from the right-field bleachers. (Warning: Don't try to use a mixed metaphor involving African predator cats and baseball unless you're a trained journalism professional.)

This article was prepared just after our 2001 expedition which turned out to be the best ever. Mike Ange, general manager for Draeger North America, joined us to represent their rebreathers and to offer up-to-date tips on the units. Most of our group had made several trips with us before including Peter Furnad (a banker from Knoxville, Tennessee) who has made every trip we offered since 1996. That's nearly 90 dives and over 125 hours at world's best underwater petting zoo.
When a last minute opening came up due to illness with a confirmed diver, we accepted Dona Jones as a replacement. A resident of Ennis, Montana and an active diver, she grabbed the last spot with less than five days before departure and would undertake the TDI certification course for the rebreather while on board. To ease her transition, the Sea Hunter's diving supervisor, Mario Arroyo, went to great pains to show her video clips of what to expect. This included an exciting stream of footage showing the thrashing mating rituals of white tip sharks.
After watching the segment in which the male shark bites down on the female's pectorals to ensure his grip during the mating act, Dona inquired as to why it was necessary for the male to be so violent.
Mario summoned his most scholarly demeanor as he attempted to explain Shark Mating 101 to his student, "Dona, you must understand that sharks... they have no hands." We all figured that he was starting from a pretty basic position of animal science and left him to progressively amplify the nuances of shark foreplay. Dona seemed spellbound after some initial hesitation.
Whether or not the live action lived up to Dona's vivid fantasies was a question answered after her first dive off Manuelita when she was treated to her first experience viewing wave after wave of hammerheads.
She was, to further strain a metaphor, hooked.

The bait ball phenomena is one of the more unique thrill rides associated with Cocos. The name derives from the defensive action of small fish that form into a rapidly swirling ball to appear larger and ward off predators. Several films, including Howard Hall's stunning IMAX masterpiece Island of the Sharks, depict this wild frenzy. It usually can be identified from the surface by the activity of diving sea birds that also feed in the school. Underneath, the action is electrifying as tuna, dolphins, and sharks all converge to feed in violent lunges until the entire bait ball is consumed. It's not for the faint of heart but offers the diver an unbelievable observation point of nature's Darwinian theory in real time.
Although it's hard to pry yourself away from the underwater experiences, the terrestrial side of Cocos presents a remarkable opportunity for hiking the islands jungle trails, visiting the various blue-footed booby rookeries and other exotic bird species, or simply relaxing in the bathing pools created
by hundreds of waterfalls cascading from
the steep cliffsides.

Cocos is better than ever and 2001 produced some of the best action we'd ever seen. There were more sharks, more up close action, and clearer water conditions. All this coupled with a group of the best experienced divers it's been our pleasure to dive with made this expedition one for the record books.
The images in this article convey the
Cocos experience far better than I could possibly relate in a narrative. It was tough culling the photo inventory down to what you see on these pages. But we tried to select the best moments captured on film spanning several of our successive trips including some shots by our accomplished fellow divers.
We have scheduled two such rebreather expeditions for 2002 to Cocos and a special combination voyage including Cocos and Malpelo Island for 2003. If your budget allows, treat yourself to the most adrenaline-pumping experience available and join us.
You get a $5 discount if you already understand that "sharks... they have no hands." We need more impassioned ichthyologists.

If such a thing as slack tide ever existed at Malpelo, we had definitely missed it. Fists clenched around the anchor line, the current ripped at us as we dragged ourselves down through a layer of green water. Somewhere below was an unexplored sea mount: no one had ever been there before, and I was rapidly finding out why. Malpelo – a remote and inhospitable hunk of rock in the eastern Pacific – is famed for its challenging diving conditions, and this was a suitably violent baptism.

At the surface it was a balmy 28˚C (82˚F), but at 9m the water danced before my eyes as a cooler current enveloped me. Scalloped hammerhead sharks turned and wheeled, flickering shadows at the limits of visibility. At 26m (85 feet), a second thermocline kicked in, cruelly lowering the temperature to 15˚C (59˚F). Here, beneath the upper layers of soupy bath water, it was exceptionally clear, but dark, like cave water. I looked across the expanse of the sea mount, at fellow divers dragging themselves over the current-blasted rock, their bubbles twisting behind them in agitated patterns.

I hauled my self to the drop-off ad peered into the void. Malpelo is probably best known for its schools of scalloped hammerhead sharks, which tend to cruise the upper thermoclines at 8–12m (26-40 feet). But in this deeper, cooler water, other predators reign. Squeezing into the shelter of a crevice, I heard what sounded like distant thunder, and looked up to see a pack of monstrous almaco jacks swooping close around my head. They were really pleased to see me.

I have witnessed curious behaviour in predatory fish, but nothing as bold as that being displayed by these almacos (more than a metre long, they were far larger than textbooks suggests – everything is bigger than it should be at Malpelo). They seemed to want to brush their bodies against my scuba equipment.

I was being used as a back-scratcher, so I did what any self-respecting diver would do in the circumstances: tried to take a photograph. Past experience has shown that the simple action of putting an eye to the viewfinders is sufficient to send most fish packing: entire schools have fled the vicinity before my hand has so much as twitched towards the aperture control. But the almacos (see photograph, right) were unperturbed, and continued to circle at high speed, refusing to flinch even as the powerful flashgun fired directly in their expressionless faces. Annoyingly, the diver in front of me was using a rebreather (the manufactures of which claims it will get you closer to nature), but the fish weren’t dive-bombing him.

Surfacing from any dive at Malpelo, the barren immensity of the island looms large. Actually, it seems misleading to refer to Malpelo as an island, when it’s simply a very big rock. However, the Colombian government has gone to some lengths to get it legally recognized as an island, to secure territorial rights to the surrounding waters. To back up its claim, they keep a permanent Navy presence on the rock.

There is absolutely nowhere to land a boat of any size. When supplies are landed, vessels must draw up beneath a crane that is suspended from the rock face. A rope ladder is then thrown to the deck. For the visitor, Malpelo doesn’t offer many topside attractions. There are birds, and views of the Pacific. Otherwise, the Colombians hole up in their quarters – perched on one of the rock’s level sections – and wait to be relieved. I only hope they have satellite television.

For divers, Malpelo is an altogether more adventurous prospect. The rock was born from the same volcanic hot spot that gave birth to Cocos Island and the Galapagos archipelago. Malpelo is approximately four million years old, Cocos a sprightly 2.5 million and the Galapagos a relative whippersnapper, spewed out a mere million years ago. Like the other two, Malpelo attracts pelagic fish in great numbers.

I was on board the liveaboard Sea Hunter which was on one of its occasional charters that visit both Malpelo and Cocos Island. Running a diving operation at Malpelo is fraught with difficulties. There’s no sheltered anchorage, so the skipper has to choose the most protected side of the island (north, in our case), and lay anchor close to the cliff face. Crew members take it in turns to keep watch through the night, in case the ship drifts too close.

In the water, divers are treated to a concentration of schooling hammerheads possibly even greater than at Cocos Island. The crew thinks this may be due to the fact that Malpelo is smaller than Cocos, so you see the same schools again and again. Unlike other tropical sharks sites, the hammerheads are typically seen in the shallows, where the warm surface water meets the first of the thermoclines.

Malpelo owes the complexity and richness of its ecosystem to the many ocean currents and counter-currents that converge there. Of these, the Peru Coastal or Humboldt current is probably the most important, bringing a bounty of nutrient-rich water. It is also quite chilly. Choosing the right wetsuit is a practical impossibility at Malpelo: a 5mm steamer may appear to offer too much insulation at the surface, but by the time you’re hunting for ugly/beautiful critters such as the rosy-lipped batfish at 40m, you will wish you had a 7mm or even a drysuit. Hoods and gloves are essential.

Most of our dives were carried out over a stretch of coast on Malpelo’s north side, which carries fitting site names such as; The Freezer, The Fridge and Freezer wall. We saw hammerheads on pretty much all of our dives here, but visibility in the surface waters was uniformly poor, averaging 10 – 12m (32-40 feet). The sharks simply weren’t seen in the cold, clear water below, although looking down, we occasionally saw sand tiger sharks lurking at 70m (230 feet). There’s a lot of debate about these giant sharks: could they be a new, distinct species? Received wisdom now has it that they are a hitherto unknown population of small-toothed sand tiger sharks, also found in the Med.

There are some hefty swells at Malpelo, and several of our group were thrust on to the ubiquitous sea urchins when they failed to take its unrelenting force into account. Finding space to settle can be a challenge in itself, as much of the real estate is taken up by moray eels. The eels are the first thing you notice about Malpelo: they are everywhere, sneering from their lairs and undulating over the reefs.

Two American photojournalist on board the Sea Hunter – husband and wife team Stuart and Michele Westmorland – were especially prone to bumps and scratches when distracted by their work.

Michele even received a warning nip from a moray (a nasty scratch, through several layers of neoprene), after accidentally settling over its home, but nothing could have prepared them for the unholy experience that awaited them at a site known as the Cathedral. This cavern is the Hong Kong of eel cities: scores of fanged faces leer at visiting divers, mouths agape in early-stage threat postures (some eel species, such as the jewel moray, open their mouths to breathe, but the Sea Hunter’s guides believe the speckled morays of Malpelo use the gesture as a threat).

An incredibly sudden combination of current and swell trapped the photographers in the cave and bashed them repeatedly against the walls, washing-machine style. Stuart lost an expensive flashgun, a fin and a bootee in the maelstrom (and another diver lost a reel trying to rescue him), but in the end was unceremoniously spat out. He was bruised and cut, but otherwise well. The eels must have known what was going to happen: there wasn’t one to be seen inside the cave.

Despite this mishap, it would be misleading to describe Malpelo as a destination suitable for only hard-core adventurers. An Austrian woman in my group had just 30 dives to her name, but seemed quite happy in the swell. Conditions change quickly and radically in the Eastern Pacific: the charter after mine had a very easy time at Malpelo. The truth is that anyone with reasonable experience and the sense to dive conservatively can have an enjoyable experience here.

While Malpelo provides a range of unique sights and adventure dives, Cocos Island allows a similar experience with radically better visibility. Certainly, the 30-hour voyage between the two gives divers a much-needed rest – a time to prod at urchin wounds, overhaul cameras and enjoy the Sea Hunter’s agreeably lowbrow video library.

Having enjoyed the adrenalin diving at Malpelo (which translates, inexplicably, to as ‘bad hair’ – perhaps they meant ‘hair-raising’), Cocos Island offers a chance to see similar wildlife in easier circumstances. Conditions at Cocos are primarily determined by the North Equatorial counter-current, which carries warm water from the western Pacific to Cocos, making it a site in which it’s comfortable to wear a 5mm wetsuit. My visit took place in April, at the tail end of the dry season, when currents tend to be less severe, visibility is typically 25-30m (80-100 feet) and light can easily penetrate down to the sea mounts. Many prefer to visit in the rainy when currents are more boisterous, but the hammerhead schools are seen more frequently and at more sites.

More nonsense is spoken about Cocos than just about any other dive destination, so here’s some fact. Designated a national park by the Costa Rican government in 1978, the 24 sq km (9.3 sq miles) island lies 600km (324 nautical miles) south of the mainland port of Puntarenas, and 630km (341 nautical miles) northeast of the Galapagos Islands. Cocos lies within the doldrums, an area of weak and variable winds where trade winds converge, forming the clouds which normally shroud the island’s 636m (2087 feet) summit, Cerro Iglesias.

Cocos receives a staggering 7m (23 feet) of rainfall every year, which in turn supports a very lush cloud forest. The excess water then drains off the island and into the sea via spectacular waterfalls, one of which was used for an early scene in the classic Spielberg film, Jurassic Park.

Cocos was discovered by the Spanish seafarer Juan Cabezas in 1526, and was shown as Isla de Coco in a map of the world drawn up in 1556. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it served as a hideaway for the pirates and privateers who flourished along the Pacific coasts of Spanish America. Several treasures are supposed to be buried here, including the legendary Lima booty, which supposedly consists of two tonnes of gold bars and sheets of gold that once covered the domes of churches. So far, some 500 expeditions have failed to recover any treasure.

The real treasure, of course, lies in the surrounding waters. Although the eastern pacific cannot match Southeast Asia for marine biodiversity, Cocos boasts fish populations that pretty much put every other dive destination in the shade. The basis of the menu for larger predators is the ubiquitous Pacific creolefish, which is to Cocos what anthias are to the Red Sea. They certainly get a hard time from the island’s huge population of white-tip reef sharks. The white-tips are normally sluggish by day, cruising the pinnacles or resting on sandy bottoms until dark, when they zip over the reef like heat-seeking missiles, hunting the creolefish. Evidently, they are also partial to octopus: quite a few sharks carry wounds on their gill slits, where a desperate cephalopod has tried to escape in the process of being devoured. It’s worth keeping a close eye on the white-tips – if they seem to be massing during the day, there’s a chance that a female has come into season, and any divers fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time may witness their brutal courtship.

At Cocos, the ‘right place’ often turns out to be a sea mount named Alcyone (after Cousteau’s ship). Located off the exposed southeastern point, it is a classic site. On my first dive there, the sea mount had been clearly visible from the surface. I swam down the anchor line and paused at the bottom to collect myself before trying to find a suitable vantage point from which to look out for scalloped hammerheads. The idea is to wait by a group of barberfish, and wait for a hammerhead to approach in the hope of having parasites pecked from its body. This is the best way to get close to the skittish sharks.

I finned towards a raised ridge on the far side of the sea mount, which faced the current and was ideally suited to hammerhead-watching. Peering ahead, I was disconcerted to see another ridge that appeared to be moving beyond it. It took a while before I realized I was looking at a whale shark. She was a female, slow moving and untroubled by the clamoring mass of divers which now converged on her. Over the course of the next 35 minutes (every diver on our charter used nitrox 32 for the first two dives of the day, switching to EAN 36 for the third and fourth), she treated us to four similarly graceful passes, and was at the anchor line as we reluctantly started the ascent, gas levels predictably low.


The sea mounts and pinnacle sites off Cocos provide a good chance of witnessing animal behaviour. Divers regularly come across excitable swarms of leather bass and marbled stingrays, all of whom appear fixated by a particular patch of rock. In fact, they are trying to flush out juvenile cardinalfish, which hide between the spines of sea urchins. The predators converge on the urchins, some trying to use suction to pull the fish into their maws (you can hear the gulping sound), while others hope the prey will flee towards them in the confusion. The jacks in particular seem to inspire terror in fish of all sizes. And, they are devious brutes: on several occasions, I noticed a solitary island jack swimming under the voluminous folds of a marble ray. Whenever the sluggish ray passed by a suitable prey item, the jack would break from its cover and make a shift darting attack.

At Alcyone, a pack of bluefin trevally streaming over the reef produces a deep, roaring sound that makes the sensitive hammerheads wince. Yet the sea mount remains the hub of hammerhead activity during the day. Invisible magnetic valleys and ridges radiate from Alcyone like spokes from a wheel. Following these ‘roads’, the hammerheads travel to distant feeding grounds to hunt squid, then return to their home base at dawn. On a typical dive at Alcyone, you can expect to see at least five or six schools passing by, with each ‘flyby’ typically lasting between 45 seconds and a minute.

On a few occasions, desperately trying to control my breathing, I was able to observe some extraordinary behaviour among the sharks. The center of the schools seems to be occupied by dominant females, who intimidate their smaller sisters with acrobatic displays. The most spectacular of these was first identified by the biologist Peter Klimley, who called it the ‘corkscrew’ display. It’s an astonishing sight: a 3m (10 feet) hammerhead performs a reverse somersault while rotating her torso, producing flashes of light off her white belly. Large females have also been seen striking rivals with the undersides of their jaws, and bouts of rapid acceleration are common. The schools are composed exclusively of large female sharks, but Klimley has observed lone males dashing into the central cluster of big females, performing torso thrusts to advertise their virility. If the male is accepted, the couple will leave the school and mate at the bottom.

Despite such insights into the private lives of super-predators, there remains much to be discovered at Cocos. To an extent, the island’s isolation affords natural protection, but an increasing number of fishermen are making the crossing from Costa Rica to defy the park wardens in their hunt for shark fins. Time and again – and despite confiscations of cargo – the same boats are stopped and searched.

It’s tempting to look at the issue from the point of view of the fishermen. After all, Cocos wasn’t put there for the exclusive pleasure of well-heeled tourists, and there are mouths to feed. But the argument for unbridled exploitation doesn’t hold water. As a nation, Costa Rica has prospered through the preservation of its forests and coasts. Ecotourism is the single most important earner of foreign currency – it brings in $59.4 million every month, and the figure is still rising sharply each year. The country has learned to be wary of short-term temptations that could lead to the long-term degradation of such a resource.

In 1997, the United Nations declared Cocos a World Heritage Site, after tireless lobbying by the late park director, Joaquin Alvarado. Today, the island is depicted on Costa Rica’s 2,000 colones banknote. The reverse side of the note features a drawing of a hammerhead shark. Thanks to the banknote, the shark’s unearthly features have, to an extent, become synonymous with the economic stability that the country currently enjoys. The shark as a symbol of hope and prosperity? Now that’s progress.

Article written by Simon Rogerson, who joined the trip courtesy of Scuba Tours Worldwide (England, ph: 01449 780220 or e-mail: info@scubascuba.com.

Starting this trip many were asking us if we prefer Cocos or Malpelo and in the two previous trips which of the two islands took the award for the best location.

Well, after thinking a little bit about it, our answer was: this year Malpelo showed us impressive schools of hammers in shallow waters, numerous red-lipped batfish, uncountable moray eels and a great concentration of marine life, but all this in icy water, poor visibility and really strong surge. While Cocos balanced a smaller number of hammers with warm and clear water, and did the difference with the double “white tip mating” show of February and the fabulous whale shark of April. So up to this moment Cocos was slightly ahead of Malpelo.

That each of these islands possesses its own soul was an idea that this trip confirmed one more time.

Maybe the spirit of Malpelo felt it needed to get back in the game, so it made us a gift of 5 beautiful days of clear and warm water that gave us the opportunity to enjoy much more the incredible concentration of schools of jacks, grunts, snappers, leather basses, eels everywhere, hundreds of scorpionfish in Monster Reef, hammerheads in Freezer Wall and Cast Away Coast. Just to be sure of the victory against Cocos on this trip it waited till the only moment in which both our “teams” were diving in the same place (the third dive of the third day at 3 pm) to introduce a marvellous 20 foot long lady.......yes you’re right...a WHALE SHARK!!

And now for something completely new. During our previous trips in Malpelo we noticed that a little after sunrise it was possible to see in the Freezer Wall area numerous dorsal fins of hammerheads right on the surface and Mario started to think…hmmm, how will they react if we try to snorkel with them when they are so close to the surface??? We have never seen this behavior in Cocos.... why don’t we try before breakfast???

So this time we tried and for many these have been the most unforgettable moments of this trip (right Jason??). Every day at 6:30 am we snorkeled with schooling hammerheads taking shots from a very different angle and some close ups absolutely impossible to take wearing scuba!!! As one of the divers, Larry, said many times: “A KILLER experience!!!”

Does anyone know if there is another place in the world where you can snorkel daily with schooling hammerheads?? I firmly doubt it. Please let us know if it exists.

So bye bye and thank you Malpelo! It will be hard to wait till next year to dive again in your CRAZY WATERS!!!!!!

Obviously Cocos found itself in difficulty, having to live up to this. Another reason was due to the transition between the dry and the wet season, when the action at Cocos tends to get a little bit slower for three or four weeks and concentrates mainly in the southern area of Dos Amigos and, as always, in Alcyone.

Cocos tried to convince us to vote for her with good hammer activity and extremely friendly mobulas in the areas that I mentioned before, several encounters with dolphins (especially the beautiful show of six adults playing in the middle of the huge school of jacks in Shark Fin Rock), some Silkies appearing a couple of times during drifting safety stops, the Silvertips in Silverado (they finally came back after a short holiday) and a big Pacific Manta after the last dive of the last day...All this was great but, we’re sorry Cocos, this time it is not enough to defeat the solid performance of Malpelo. Then again it’s tough when the standards are set so high…

Ah, I almost forgot that on our way back to Puntarenas we stopped to observe a group of more than 10 humpback whales...not bad...this is a very good sign...we’re ready for the high season at COCOS!!!!!!

Over a thousand nautical miles to sail in twelve days; two fascinating and unpredictable destinations: Malpelo and Cocos Islands, and, on board, a host who represents the historical embodiment of human interaction with sharks. Stan Waterman. The Man Who Loves Sharks.

Before we sailed, I was wondering: “Will Malpelo show us its wonders or would the often unsavory conditions of its waters hide them from us this time? Will Cocos once again surprise and thrill this living legend, who has already witnessed, filmed and showed the world almost all the secrets of the Sixth Continent? ”

Malpelo gave us a literally cold welcome. Choppy and cold water, visibility no more than 20 feet and an icy thermocline (16oC, approximately 60oF) at 100 feet, with totally clear water beneath (more than 150 feet visibility).

Many thought: “My God, What are we gonna do here?” Yet dive after dive, things got better (but not the temperature of the water). We had great dives with uncountable moray eels at The Cathedral (we managed to count 29 speckled morays living together in the same crevice)… Stan began to get thrilled.

Then we saw close compact schools of sixty to eighty scalloped hammerheads in the wall called “The Freezer” (which serves its name splendidly). Each of us could find his or her own red lipped bat fish (Stan was really thrilled) in the deep sandy area of Virginia’s Altars, with schooling hammerheads continuously passing on top of our heads, while divers concentrated on shooting macros of rare cute batfish.

At the end of the third days, the weather turned bad and we sailed off to Cocos. The island greeted us on a splendid night, with a rare view of Jupiter over Cerro Yglesias. Bright sunny day, flat sea, warm water, very good visibility and an early encounter with six adult bottle-nosed dolphins and three calves during the safety stop of our first dive, in Alcyone.

These good conditions prevailed during our five days on the island. We saw several mobula rays, a Pacific Manta in Submerged Rock, a sailfish in Dos Amigos and mantis shrimp in Isla Pájara (Bird Island). We also encountered good numbers of hammerheads in Alcyone and Roca Sucia (Dirty Rock), and the silver tips allowed us to shoot and film them in Silverado.

The island chose to surprise Mr. Waterman. Little after Valentine’s Day, we got our present from Cocos. A fabulous white tip mating show in Dos Amigos Grande made Stan happy as a child. That night, on board, the images recorded in Dos Amigos were worthy of a XXX-rated movie.

Stan commented (a little envious) that the close up Hugo took was surely the hottest he’d ever seen.

Then, the island remembered that February is the Month of Love (by the way, congratulations Nick and Sheena on your underwater engagement!) and gave The Man Who Loves Sharks a private show. Two days after the Hot Cocos Moment, Stan watched (and filmed!) in Roca Sucia another wild mating scene between white tips. This time, he got a close up worthy of the title “HOTTEST UNDERWATER CLOSEUP OF THE YEAR”.

Many would say: This Stan is really lucky! Actually, it is not a question of luck. His love for the sea is so big and clear that the sea loves him back and keeps revealing to him its wonders and surprises.

We were honored we could share with Mr. Waterman the thrill of these COCOS MOMENTS. We are happy he chose to join us again next year and look forward to another Malpelo and Cocos trip.

See you soon, Stan, The Man Who Loves Sharks Who Love Mating!

It was the last day of our trip, at about 0300 pm when we decided that it would be a good idea to try on our third dive of the day something new. There was this little rock south to us that we always wanted to check out…so, we headed south. In Cocos, it is a well known fact that one should always keep a very keen eye open toward the ocean because you never know what you are going to see out there! A sailfish, a manta, dolphin or a humpback whale they all might be passing by when you are in Cocos.
So when we spotted that cloud of frenzied birds we headed right for it. Frenzied birds, diving at the surface of the sea is a well-known phenomenon indicating heavy fish activity in the waters below. We came upon a floating log, which was serving as raft for brown footed boobies bobbing up and down on their floating perch. A log and Brown footed boobies! A good sign! A log and brown-footed boobies are basic ingredients for a good Bait ball. "Bait ball"- because the little bait fish, when being hunted, start running around them self creating this silvery ball and that is where the name comes from. In a bait ball you can find different bait fish and different Hunters. Some times the bait fish will be trapped between the surface and the hunters below. This is when the boobies and frigats will join the feast.

We jump in - falling into a sea of Baby Cortez Chubs, baby rainbow runners, and a few pilot fish. A school of really young green jacks was swirling below. The green jacks were shivering, small hatchlings shimmering together creating an ever dancing silver colored shape. Black tip sharks passed by and someone said he could hear dolphins. But then the birds moved on and activity dropped, so we moved on.

Another entry to the water- another bunch of black tip sharks zoomed around us amid shadows of accompanying dolphins .We follow the action breathless until we lost it. Yep, only blue water around us. Back on the panga I thought we had seen it all for today. A decision was made to finally go diving on the original site when someone spotted that bird activity again.
"There it is, on our left!!!"
"No, it is on our right!!!" "
"It is behind us!!!"
"No, it is in front of us!!!"
In the midst of inability to decide for sure, we went over the side of the panga into the realm of the impossible.
A bait ball.
TOUCH DOWN!

Once again Black tip sharks surrounded us, zooming around the log. A dolphin passed by excited, at a high speed. This time the green jacks hatchling were swarming in fast changing directions creating their elastic silver ball. It is suspected that they swarm in these tight balls in effort to look like a terrifying big creature and not like a bunch of terrified little green jacks. Skip jacks were swimming by. First Big silky Sharks appeared out of the blue and the slotter was on. Silver and terrible, he rushed into the tightly -knit ball of green jacks opened its jaws wide, and took in a mouthful of victims.


The next thing I knew I had my camera up to my eye. I am not sure why I was not out of film, like I usually am when all hell breaks loose. This time I was loaded . Being underwater in situation like this is like trying to figure out what to do in the U.S. stock market. Do you shoot up all your film now, because it will not get any better then this? Or do you conserve and wait?

So, now I finally start shooting. And guess what, it was still too soon. The show was still getting better and better. The marauding shark continued to swoop up the green jacks into his gaping mouth. The jacks, terrorized, then tried a different kind of defense. They swarmed tightly around the sharks body, in an attempt to avoid its mouth.
The predator began to react. It twitched and turned in quick sudden movements, trying to snatch up the jacks in its teeth. We started to hear the sound of crunching cracking bones. That was loud. Very loud.
A silver tip shark came in to check out the action .The Silver Tip shark disappeared. More And more big size silkies were showing up heating the silvery ball again and again and again. The silvery ball was clearly getting smaller. Brown boobies were diving from the skies claiming their share and the skipjack shimmered in and out to and from the scene.

42 minutes later there were two green left alive- this two little fish, obviously well traumatized, decided there was only one way to save themselves- to hide behind divers that were watching the whole thing.
They swam to Hans and Waltraud , who agreeably gave them shelter as long as their air lasted.
As I watched all of this I made a count: Under the log were left a dozen juvenile Cortez chubs, along with five juvenile rainbow runners. Together with the two green jacks hiding behind Hans and Waltraud , that was it. Complete Carnage by air and sea.
The work of nature is often brutal, yet they are miraculous as well .as a diver exploring the unexplored and UN tamed the raw working of survival can stare you in the face. In a sophisticated world moving increasingly toward technological comfort and ease, such miraculous brutality strikes at the core of life itself, and make the stuff of the best adventure.

Uninhabited island off Costa Rica harbors a bounty of natural treasures and perhaps even some buried ones.

www.cnn.com/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/9802/cocos.island/